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GIFT  OF 

THOMAS   RUTHERFORD  BACON 
MEMORIAL  LIBRARY 


r/7PA^^^^w^i^ 


THE 


UNSPEAKABLE  GIFT. 


The  Gift  of  Eternal  Life  Through 
Jesus  Christ  Our  Lord. 


BY 

J.    H.   PETTINGELL,   A.M., 

Late  Chaplain  at  Antwerp,  Belfrinm.      Author  of  "  Homiletical  Index**} 

*' Theological  Trilemma " ;   "Will  Satan  Live  Forever?"  "Language— 

its  Nature  and  Functions";    "  Platonism  versus  Christianity"; 

"  Bible  Terminology  " ;  "  The  Life  Everlasting  " ;  "What  did 

Christ  Teach?"  etc.;  etc. 


"The  Gift  of  God  is  Eternal  Life  Through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."— PawZ. 


AVITH    AN    INTRODUCTION 

By    REV.    EDWARD    WHITE, 

Minister  of  St.  Panl!a.  Chapel,  London,  England. 


YARMati:EH,  ME.: 
I.    C.    T^ELLCOMIE. 

Philadelphia,  Pa.:  J.  D.  BROWN,  704  Arch  Street. 

London,  England:  ELLIOT  STOCK,  62  Paternoster  Row. 

1887. 


tc> 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1884, 

By  I.  C.  AVELLCOME, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington,  D.O* 


B.  Thurston  &  Co.,  Portland,  Me., 
JSlectrotypers  and  Printers. 


UNIVGR^ 


OTTHE  \ 


PREFACE. 


The  volume  entitled  The  Theological  Trilemma  was  pub 
llshed  in  1878,  though  written  six  or  seven  years  earlier. 
This  was  followed,  in  1881,  by  Platonism  versus  Christian' 
ity,  and  a  few  months  after,  by  Bihle  Terminology,  and,  iu 
1882,  by  The  Life  Everlasting,  a  large  volume  of  800  pages, 
including  the  two  smaller  volumes  of  the  previous  year,  to- 
gether with  a  "  Symposium,"  to  which  twenty  representative 
men  of  various  evangelical  churches  in  this  country  and 
Europe  kindly  contributed  brief  papers. 

My  object  in  issuing  another  volume  so  soon  on  the  same 
general  subject  is  not  that  I  may  re-argue  this  question  upon 
any  new  basis, — for  why  should  this  be  done  when  no  one 
has  yet  answered  the  argument  already  offered,  and  no  one 
can,  as  I  am  fully  assured  if  he  would  deal  honestly  with  the 
Word  of  God  ?  Certainly,  the  obvious  letter  of  its  testimony 
is  most  emphatically,  and  everywhere,  that  "  The  wages  of 
sin  is  Death,  and  the  gift  of  God  is  Eternal  Life  through 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord";  and  it  is  only  by  putting  a  schol- 
astic and  unnatural  meaning  upon  these  crucial  terms, 
*'Life"  and  "Death,"  that  the  Scriptures  can  be  made  to 
seem  to  teach  something  contrary  to  what  they  actually 
declare.  But  in  view  of  the  very  general  and  increasing 
^^^  interest  in  this  question,  and  of  the  urgent  calls  for  another 
^^™edition  of  my  first  volume,  now  out  of  print,  I  have  thought 
^^K-  might  better  meet  the  wants  of  inquirers  by  putting  the 

■ 


4  PEEFACE. 

argument,  which  is  mainly  Scriptural,  into  a  more  compact 
and  popular  form,  in  a  smaller  volume  than  by  re-issu- 
ing the  old  volume,  or  any  of  the  later  ones.  The 
Theological  Trilemma  was  written  fourteen  years  ago, 
while  I  was  in  a  foreign  country,  under  peculiar  cir- 
cumstances of  isolation,  and  without  ever  having  seen 
any  American  work  or  tract  in  advocacy  of  the  doctrine 
of  Eternal  Life  only  through  Christ  by  redemption, — indeed, 
most  of  the  literature  on  this  subject  has  made  its  appear- 
ance since  that  time, — and  now,  after  having  devoted  all 
these  subsequent  years  to  the  further  study  of  this  question, 
and  having  read  everything  I  could  lay  hold  of  that  seemed 
worthy  of  attention,  on  all  sides  of  it,  and  after  much  inter- 
course and  correspondence  with  Christian  scholars  who  have 
embraced  this  doctrine,  my  earlier  views,  though  very 
generally  confirmed,  have  taken  a  more  definite  and  con- 
gruous form  on  this  and  other  questions  with  which  it  is  so 
intimately  connected.  The  second  work  above  mentioned 
is  a  simple  monograph  ;  the  third  is  devoted  to  the  discus- 
sion of  certain  eschatological  terms — neither  of  them  dealing 
with  the  whole  question — and  as  for  the  last  volume.  The 
Life  Everlasting — the  second  edition  of  which  is  now  nearly 
or  quite  exhausted — it  is  too  large  and  too  expensive  for 
general  popular  circulation. 

While  the  present  volume  may  be  considered  as  a  new 
presentation  of  the  old  argument,  it  contains  much  that  is 
new,  and  is  substantially  a  new  work,  and  takes  a  new  title, 
yet  it  is  proper  to  say — what  will  be  obvious  to  those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  other  volumes — ^that  I  have  not  hesitated  to 
avail  myself  of  any  matter  in  them  that  would  serve  my  pur- 
pose in  preparing  this ;  and  especially,  as  my  argument  is 
mainly  Scriptural,  I  have  freely  employed  the  same  textual 


I 


PREFACE.  D 

citations,  and  many  of  the  comments  thereon  ;  but  I  have 
used  nothing  without  re-writing  and  condensing  it  as  much 
as  possible. 

The  use  of  Scripture  language  and  forms  of  expression 
has  been  so  frequent  throughout  the  volume  that  it  has 
not  seemed  important  to  encumber  its  pages  with  references 
to  book,  chapter  and  verse,  in  these  numerous  incidental 
and  indirect  quotations,  unless  they  have  been  made  the 
subject  of  special  comment  or  the  foundation  of  an  argu- 
ment. These  quotations  have  generally  been  made  from  the 
old  standard  version,  excepting  in  special  cases,  when  new 
light  seems  to  have  been  thrown  upon  any  passage  by  the 
revision,  inasmuch  as  the  old  version  still  is,  and  will  long 
be,  the  one  with  which  Bible  readers  are  the  most  familiar — 
for  it  is  not  so  much  to  minute  critical  renderings  that  I 
would  direct  attention  as  to  the  plain,  obvious  sense  of  the 
text  under  any  honest  rendering. 

The  question  under  discussion  is  not  one  of  hermeneutics 
and  critical  points,  but  of  fair  and  honest  dealing  with  the 
simple  literal  sense  of  the  Word  of  God.  It  is  not  what  pos- 
sible meaning  can  be  put  into  those  numerous  passages  of 
Scripture  that  threaten  Death  as  the  end  of  sin,  and  promise 
Life — Life  Eternal  to  all  true  believers  in  Christ  ?  how  they 
can  be  so  rendered  as  to  bring  them  into  agreement  with 
any  popular  system  of  philosophy  ?  but.  Do  they  mean  what 
the  plain,  literal  sense  of  the  words  import,  or  are  they 
to  be  taken  in  some  metaphorical,  spiritualistic,  ethical,  un- 
real sense,  quite  different,  and  even  contrary,  to  their 
ordinary  sense?  This  is  a  question  which  every  inquirer 
must  determine  for  himself,  and,  happily,  one  which  the  un- 
lettered Christian  disciple  is  quite  as  competent  to  determine 
as  the  scholastic  theologian  and  learned  dialectician,  yea, 


6  PREFACE. 

better  able  to  determine  correctly;  for  when  one's  mind  hai^ 
become  sophisticated,  and  his  processes  of  thought  trained 
into  any  psychological  or  speculative  system,  he  will  be  sure 
to  read  that  system  into  the  letter  of  God's  Word,  and  con- 
strue its  doctrines  in  harmony  with  it.  This  was  the  very 
thought  of  our  Lord  when  He  exclaimed,  "  I  thank  Thee,  O 
Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  thou  hast  hid  these 
things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them 
iinto  babes."  This  was  the  ground  of  Paul's  frequent  and 
earnest  warning  to  the  early  disciples:  "Beware  lest  any 
man  spoil  you  through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit  and  after 
the  tradition  of  men,"  "  I  fear  lest  by  any  means,  as  the 
serpent  beguiled  Eve  through  his  subtilty,  so  your  minds 
should  be  corrupted  from  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ." 

The  manifest  drift  of  the  present  age  is  towards  a  religion 
of  science  and  philosophy,  and  away  from  the  simple  truths 
of  the  Gospel.  Many  well-meaning  but  sophisticated  minds 
are  being  led  away  by  the  delusion  that  these  truths  must  be 
brought  within  the  scope  of  natural  laws.  They  would 
bring  the  facts  and  doctrines  which  it  reveals  to  the  test  of 
reason  and  science,  as  though  the  Christian  religion  were  one 
of  the  many  forms  of  a  natural  religion,  only  more  scientific, 
purer  and  better.  Here  is  the  real  source  of  the  confusion 
and  darkness  and  doubt  of  many  who  would  become  scien- 
tific and  philosophical  Christians — if  Christians  at  all — forget- 
ting that  the  first  step  in  the  knowledge  of  divine  things  is 
to  become  little  children  at  the  feet  of  the  Master.  The 
supreme  truths  of  the  Christian  religion  are  revealed,  not  to 
our  reason,  but  to  our  faith.  They  do  not  come  within  the 
sphere  or  scope  of  natural  science,  or  human  philosophy. 
Its  great  facts  are  altogether  Divine  and  supernatural,  and 
until  this  is  apprehended  and  allowed,  no  real  progress  can 


I 

• 


PREFACE.  7 

be  made  in  the  right  direction.    They  are  above  nature  and 
cannot  be  explained  by  natural  laws. 

The  creation  of  the  world,  in  the  beginning,  was  a  super- 
natural act ;  and  whatever  speculations  one  may  entertain  as 
to  the  mode  of  this  creation,  to  deny  its  supernatural  char- 
acter, as  though  it  could  be  explained  by  natural  laws,  is  to 
to  be  an  atheist.  The  same  is  true  of  the  creation  of  man. 
He  is  not  the  outcome  of  self-operating  processes,  but  the 
special  object  of  Divine  creation,  which  no  law  of  progres- 
sive development  can  explain. 

Sin  itself  is  in  opposition  to  all  law,  and  nature  provides 
no  antidote  to  the  death  to  which  it  inevitably  leads,  nor  any 
way  of  recovery  from  its  ruin.  If  there  be  any  remedy  or 
recovery  from  its  fatal  poison,  it  must  be  supernaturally  pro- 
vided. It  is  just  here  that  we  find  the  radical  difference  be- 
tween our  holy  religion  and  all  the  other  systems  of  religion 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  This  is  given  from  heaven.  As 
for  the  others,  they  are,  at  best,  but  human  devices,  "  broken 
cisterns  that  can  hold  no  water." 

The  New  Birth,  the  Ilesurrection  from  the  dead,  and  the 
Life  everlasting,  are  not  the  orderly  steps  in  any  natural 
progress,  as,  alas  I  too  many  in  this  scientific  age  are  en- 
deavoring to  show.  They  are  truths  beyond  the  reach  of 
scientific  discovery.  There  is  no  law  of  nature  that  can  ex- 
plain, or  prove,  or  disprove  them.  They  are  specially  and 
divinely  revealed  to  our  faith,  and  are  to  be  received  because 
they  are  revealed,  and  as  they  are  revealed,  if  at  all. 

It  is  with  the  earnest  hope  and  prayer  that  I  may  be  able 
to  contribute  something  more,  if  it  be  only  a  little,  to  with- 
stand the  rationalizing  drift  and  tendency  of  the  times  away 
from  the  simple  Gospel  of  Christ,  and  to  recall  men  to  the 
faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints  on  this  question  of  Eternal 


8  PEEFACE. 

Life,  wliich  occupies  such  a  fundamental  position  in  the 
Gospel  system,  that  I  have  undertaken  this  new  work. 

1  am  truly  thankful  for  the  evidence  I  have  that  my  past 
efforts  in  this  direction  have  not  been  altogether  vain.  It  is 
not  indeed  a  pleasant  thing  to  throw  one's  self  across  the 
track  of  any  popular  sentiment,  to  incur  the  sincere  pity 
or  the  reproaches  of  beloved  Christian  brethren,  by  opposing 
a  doctrine  which  they  have  been  educated  from  childhood  to 
regard  as  a  part  of  the  evangelical  system  ;  to  meet  the  con- 
temptuous sneers  of  the  learned  leaders,  or  would-be  leaders 
of  orthodox  doctrine,  or  the  carping  criticisms  of  theological 
dialecticians,  or  the  dignified  silence  of  wise  conservatives 
who  will  listen  to  nothing  that  is  not  authorized  by  tradition, 
and  the  voice  of  the  Church.  "Were  I  to  consult  my  own 
personal  comfort  and  convenience  and  reputation  among 
men,  I  would  willingly  remain  silent ;  but  when  I  consider 
the  origin  of  this  dogma  of  immortality  apart  from  God  and 
without  a  Divine  Savior — how  unscriptural  it  is  ;  what  re- 
proach it  casts  on  the  character  of  our  Heavenly  Father ; 
how  it  depreciates  the  work  of  Christ  in  our  redemption,  and 
obscures  the  luster  of  the  Gospel,  and  hinders  its  progress  ; 
what  a  fruitful  source  of  error  it  is,  and  always  must  be;  and 
what  mischief  it  is  working  at  the  present  day  in  encourag- 
ing skepticism  and  disbelief  in  the  Bible,  and  in  the  God  of 
the  Bible,  I  cannot  hesitate  to  protest  against  it  in  the  name 
of  Him  to  whom  I  must  and  will  be  loyal,  come  what  may. 
But  though  I  speak  with  the  earnestness  of  conviction,  I  de- 
sire to  speak  the  truth  in  love.  I  hope  that  no  leaven  of 
bitterness  or  uncharitable  judgment  towards  those  whose 
false  doctrine  I  have  felt  constrained  to  oppose,  will  be  found 
in  the  pages  of  this  book.  Indeed,  when  I  remember  how, 
under  the  same  false  training  which  they  have  had,  I  too 


PREFACE.  9 

led  away  by  this  delusion,  and  how,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  I  preached  and  contended  for  this  error,  the  falsity 
of  which  I  now  see  by  the  grace  of  God,  I  have  no  heart  or 
occasion  for  bitter  words.  Nor  do  I  make  any  complaint  of 
peculiar  hardship  undergone  in  this  cause  ;  nor  do  I  feel 
that  I  have  suffered  more  for  my  faith  in  this  Gospel  doctrine, 
and  for  my  persistent  advocacy  of  it,  than  has  been  the  lot, 
in  all  ages,  of  those  who  have  opposed  any  popular  religious 
error,  and  have  stood  for  the  simple  doctrines  of  the  Gospel. 

Indeed,  I  am  greatly  encouraged  by  the  kind  words  that 
have  come  to  me  from  unknown  correspondents  in  all  parts 
of  this  country,  and  from  across  the  water,  and  by  the  assur- 
ances that  this  truth  for  which  I  am  contending  has  taken 
possession  of  so  many  Christian  hearts  and  minds,  and 
already  numbers  in  the  aggregate  such  a  host  of  confessors, 
among  whom  ar^  some  of  the  foremost  Biblical  scholars  and 
earnest  workers  in  all  branches  of  the  Church,  and  a  goodly 
number  of  our  devoted  missionaries  among  the  heathen,  and 
by  the  knowledge  that  I  have  been  permitted  to  have  some 
agency,  however  humble  it  may  be,  in  securing  this  result. 

If  my  dear  Christian  brethren  who  now  look  upon  this 
doctrine  of  Eternal  Life  only  through  Christ  as  a  dangerous 
heresy  could,  by  any  means,  be  induced  to  lay  aside  their 
traditional  notions  long  enough  to  see  how  perfectly  this 
doctrine  agrees  with  all  the  plain  declarations  of  Scripture, 
from  first  to  last;  how  it  relieves  the  character  of  God  of 
those  fearful  aspersions  which  a  heathen  philosophy  casts 
upon  it ;  how  it  magnifies  His  holy  law^and  makes  it  honor- 
able ;  how  it  exalts  and  glorifies  the  Son  of  God,  our  Savior, 
who  redeemed  us  from  death,  and  "  brought  Life  and  Immor- 

|:tality  to  light  through  the  Gospel";  how  it  confirms  and 


10  PREFACE. 

system,  and  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon  those  that  have 
been  made  obscure  and  hard  to  be  received  ;  how  it  stops  the 
mouths  of  infidels  and  scoffers,  and  takes  away  all  their 
plausible  objections  to  the  Bible,  and  the  God  of  the  Bible, 
and,  in  short,  what  a  relief  it  brings  to  the  burdened  hearts 
of  sincere  believers  who  are  wrestling  with  irrepressible 
doubts,  and  trying  to  see  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God 
through  the  dark  clouds  that  a  false  theodicy  has  thrown 
round  Him;  and  who  do  love  and  trust  Him,  in  spite  of  all 
their  doubts,  and  would  fain  commend  Him  to  others  if  they 
knew  how  to  do  it, — I  am  sure  they  would  most  joyfully 
accept  of  this  truth  themselves,  and  heartily  thank  me,  as 
not  a  few  have  already  done,  for  so  persistently  urging  it 
upon  their  attention. 

With  this  humble  volume,  my  work  is  evidently  almost,  if 
not  quite,  finished.  I  am  apprised  by  the  infirmities  of  ad- 
vancing age,  and  by  the  disabilities  under  which  these  pages 
have  been  written,  that  my  course  is  fast  drawing  to  its 
close.  Would  that  my  efforts  in  this  cause  had  begun 
earlier,  and  had  been  more  vigorously  prosecuted ;  would 
that  this  my  last  work  were  more  worthy  of  the  cause  it 
advocates  and  of  the  Master  to  whom  it  is  dedicated.  But 
such  as  it  is,  I  send  it  forth  with  the  earnest  prayer  that  He 
who  knows  how  to  employ  weak  and  imperfect  means  for 
the  accomplishment  of  His  gracious  purposes,  and  whose 
pleasure  it  is  to  set  forth  his  precious  treasures  "  in  earthen 
vessels,  that  the  excellency  of  the  power  may  be  of  God  and 
not  of  us,"  may  be  pleased  to  accept  and  abundantly  bless 
this  inadequate  exhibit  of  His  Unspeakable  Gift, — the 
Gift  of  "  Eternal  Life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

J.  H.  P. 

N.  W.  coBNEE  OF  Broad  and  Pine  Sts., 

Philadelphia,  Pa., 
May,  1884. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

Introductioit.  By  Rev.  Edward  White,  minister  of  St. 
Paul's  Chapel,  London,  Eng.  .  .  .  17-22 

PART    THE    FIRST. 

The  Question  op  Human  Immortality  Considered  in  the 

Light  of  History,  Reason  and  Philosophy. 

CHAPTER  L 

In  Limine  —  The  Nature  and  Limitations  of  the  Question. 

The  importance  of  understanding^,  at  the  outset,  what  the 
question  to  be  discussed  is,  and  is  not.  1.  It  is  not  a  ques- 
tion of  fact  as  to  our  immortality  or  non-immortality  ; 
but  as  to  the  source  and  the  grounds  of  our  hope  of  im- 
mortality. 2.  Not  as  to  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the 
Soul  of  man ;  but  of  man  himself.  3.  Not  primarily 
concerning  Future  punishment;  but  just  the  opposite, 
The  Gift  of  Eternal  Life.  4.  Not  of  translations  or  ver- 
sions ;  but  of  loyalty  to  the  plain  letter  of  God's  Word. 
5.  Not  in  opposition  to  the  Evangelical  system ;  but  in 
support  of  it.     .  .  .  .  .  •  25-36 

CHAPTER   IL 

The  Deathless  Nature  of  Man— Origin  and  History  of 
the  Dogma. 

A  very  ancient,  very  plausible,  very  popular  doctrine. 
The  Notions  of  the  Ancients;  Socrates;  Plato;  the 
Hebrews;  the  Pharisees;  What  Christ  Taught;  Paul; 
Peter;  the  Early  Fathers ;  Entrance  of  Platonic  Philoso- 
phy into  the  Church ;  Three  Schools,  that  of  the  First 
Disciples,  of  Origen,  of  Augustine ;  Decree  of  Leo  X.         37-47 

Note.    The  Three  Theories  of  Immortality.  .  48 

11 


12  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  HI.  PAGB 

DisASTjious  Influence  of  this  False  Dogma. 

The  Fathers  of  the  Reformation  accomplished  much,  but 
not  everytliing  that  needed  to  be  done.  The  root  of 
the  Evil  not  extirpated.  Consequences  of  the  belief  in 
universal  immortality;  Darkness  and  distress  of  mind. 
Skepticism ;  Sanctuary  deserted ;  Progress  of  the  Gospel 
greatly  hindered.  The  true  Gospel  doctrine  credible ; 
not  obnoxious  to  the  reproach  which  the  false  dogma 
throws  upon  it.  .  .  .  .  .  49-62 

Note.    From  H.  Constable's  Duration  and  Nature,  etc.       62-64 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Teachings  of  Nature  and  Reason. 

The  Bible,  the  only  source  of  positive  knowledge  on  this 
question.  Impossible  for  science  or  philosophy  to  give 
any  reliable  information  concerning  it.  The  folly  of  rely- 
ing on  human  reason  when  we  have  a  Divine  Revelation 
on  the  very  question.  Some  of  the  arguments  for  univer- 
sal immortality  from  Nature  and  Reason  examined,  and 
their  weakness  shown.  I.  The  Nature  of  the  Soul.  II. 
The  capacities  and  capabilities  of  man.  IH.  Human 
instincts  and  aspirations.    IV.    Analogy  of  Nature.  65-79 

CHAPTER   V. 

Natural  and  Rational  Arguments  (Continued). 

V.  The  General  Belief  of  mankind.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
suppose  it  favored  the  philosophers'  doctrine  of  univer- 
sal immortality,  the  reverse  is  true.  VI.  The  goodness 
of  God  supposed  to  be  impeached,  if  this  be  an  error,  by 
its  general  prevalence.  But  other  errors  have  prevailed. 
VII.  The  supposed  utility  of  this  doctrine.  It  works 
mischief  instead  of  good.        ....  80-96 

Note.    From  Tinling's  Promise  of  Life.  .  ,      97^101 


CONTENTS.  13 

PART    THE    SECOND.  pagb 

The  Question  op  Human  Immortality  Considered  in  the 
Light  of  Revelation. 

CHAPTER  VI. 

LOGOD^DALY. 

Do  we  really  desire  to  know  what  the  Scriptures  teach. 
They  are  not  like  heathen  Oracles.    False  Exegesis. 
New  meanings  imposed  on  the  plain  terms  of  Scripture. 
Biblical  Lexicons.    Examples  Matt.  7:  13,    Rom.  5:  12. 
Nephesh,   psuche^    zoe,    Metaphors.     Various    passages 
cited;   protest  against  sophistical  treatment  of  God's 
word.      .......  104-119 

Note.    Whately's  Lecture  on  Life  and  death.  •    120-122 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Creation  op  Man. 
Historical  verity  of  the  Mosaic  record.  Man  last  created ; 
in  the  image  of  God;  from  the  dust  of  the  ground; 
breath  of  life;  living  soul,  Milton  cited.  The  name 
Adam,  earth-made  not  spiritual  and  immortal  at 
first.  The  Tree  of  Life.  Theophilus,  Calmet's  diction- 
ary.   Dr.  Hodge's  Systematic  Theology.    .  .  123-138 

CHAPTER  VIIL 
The  Genesis  op  Sin  and  Death. 
The  trial  of  the  first  pair.  The  temptation.  The  serpent, 
change  in  his  nature.  The  Death  threatened  could 
not  have  been  understood  in  the  sense  of  a  threefold 
death  as  now  interpreted.  Barnes  cited.  **In  the 
day."  Adam  Clark.  The  curse  fell  upon  the  serpent, 
and  on  the  ground,  but  not  upon  Adam  and  Eve  as  a 
Curse.  Debarred  the  Tree  of  Life;  Milton;  Smith's 
Bible  Diet.  Irenaeus  cited.  Paradise  restored.  Trial 
of  the  race  in  Adam  not  a  cause  for  regret, 
thanksgiving.  The  inferior  before  the  superior 
before  life  Eternal.    First  and  Second  Adam.^ 

Note.    From  Baker's  Mystery  of  Creation  and  of  Man.- '^  155-158 


# 


14  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX.  ^PAQB 

Inferential  Evidence. 
I.  Animal  Sacrifices.  II.  Silence  of  Scripture. 
Animal  Sacrifices  instituted  by  God,  immediately  after 
the  Fall.  Significance  of  the  Death  of  the  Animal. 
Death  of  Christ  actual.  11.  Silence  of  Scripture.  What 
traditional  theology  teaches.  Not  one  hint  of  natural 
immortality  in  all  the  Bible.  The  Dogma  not  demon- 
strable. Pres.  Dwight  cited.  The  transference  of 
aidnios  from  zoe  to  psuche.  What  is  asserted  of  the 
righteous  as  their  peculiar  portion,  claimed  for  the 
wicked  also.  Simmons'  Manuel,  Texts  cited.  Bartlett's 
book  cited  and  criticized.  Dr.  G.  D.  Boardman  cited. 
The  doctrine  said  to  be  "  assumed  "  in  the  Bible.  159-174 

CHAPTER    X. 
The  Death  Incurred. 

The  Law  has  a  twofold  application.  True  also  of  the 
words  Death  and  Life ;  but  in  senses  that  are  real  and 
actual,  not  metaphysical.  Numerous  citations  from  the 
Old  Testament  with  running  comments.  Numerous 
citations  from  the  New  Testament  with  comments,  Dr. 
Bartlett  cited.  Inconsistency  of  the  advocates  of  the 
popular  dogma.  .....  175-193 

Note.    The  New  Congregational  Creed.  ,  .    193-194 

CHAPTER  XL 
The  Life  Given— The  Unspeakable  Gift. 
The  New  Testament  a  New  Revelation — revelation  of  a 
new  life.    Zoe  life.     Numerous  citations  from  the  New 
Testament,  direct  and  indirect,  with  comments.  .  195-213 

Note.    From  Drummond's  Natural  Law,  etc.    .  .      213-214 

CHAPTER  XIL 
Life  versus  Death. 
Two  classes,  two  opposite  destinies  contrasted,  numerous 
citations,  direct  and  indirect,  from  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments,  with  comments.  Parallel  between  the 
First  and  Second  Adam  in  1  Cor.  15.  The  death  that 
Christ  suffered.     The  Bible  means  what  it  says.  215-232 

Note.    From  Hobb's  Everlasting  Life.         .  •  232-233 


CONTENTS.  15 

CHAPTER  XIII.  PAGE 

Texts  Ain>  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Suppoet  the 
Traditional  Domga. 

Reason  to  complain  of  the  methods  of  our  antagonists. 
Life  and  Existence.  Unauthorized  assumptions.  Very- 
few  texts  available  when  fairly  treated.  Literal  sense 
discarded.  Examination  of  the  principal  texts.  Daniel 
12:1,2,    Matt.  25:46.  ....  234-251 

CHAPTER  XIY. 

Texts  and  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Support  the 
Traditional  Dogma  (Continued). 

Marks:  28,29.  Mark  9:  43-50.  Luke  16:  19-31.  The 
Prophetic  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus — fore- 
telling the  reversed  condition  of  the  Jews  and  Gen- 
tiles.      .......  252-267 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Texts  and  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Support  the 
Traditional  Dogma  (Continued). 

Rev.  14:  11.  Rev.  19:  3.  Rev.  20:  9,  10,  20.  The  Beast, 
False  Prophet  and  the  Dragon.  Barnes  and  Stuart 
cited.  The  general  truth  taught  in  the  figures  ought  to 
be  clear  and  evident.  ....  268-282 

CHAPTER  XVL 

The  Exodus  op  Sin  and  Death. 

The  Divine  economy  dualistic.    Two  revelations;  Two 
worlds;    Two  Adams;    Two  progenitors;    Two  births; 
Two  covenants;  Two  classes;  Two  kingdoms;  Two  ad- 
vents;   Two  Deaths;    obscured    and    ignored    by  the 
popular  philosophy.    Good  and  Evil  not  always  cotem- 
porary.     Difi'erent  ideas  of  Christ.     His  purpose.     His 
power.    Divine  truth  not  all  revealed  at  one  time.    The 
First  and  Last  contrasted.     The  Apocalypse— Celestial 
Paradise.  ......  283-306 

Supplement.    The  Two  Doctrines  contrasted.  .     307-341 

Index  of  Scriptures.  •  •  .  .  343-344 

Index  of  Authors.  •  .  .  .  .     345-347 


■  \ 


INTEODUOTIOI^. 


Dear  Mr.  Pettingell: 

I  feel  greatly  honored  by  your  request  that 
I  should  send  you  a  few  lines  of  sympathy  in  the 
way  of  preface  to  your  new  volume.  The  time  will 
come,  if  the  world  lasts  long  enough,  when  you  will 
be  recompensed  for  your  steadfastness  in  maintain- 
ing the  truth  on  Life  Eternal  through  the 
Divine  Incarnation,  by  the  gratitude  of  American 
Christians.  At  the  present  moment,  they  have  some- 
what discredited  you  for  "  heresy" ;  but  this  is  the 
name  given  to  every  divine  verity,  before  it  has 
received  the  imprimatur  of  the  leaders  of  orthodoxy. 
There  is  not  a  doctrinal  truth  now  dear  to  Protest- 
ants which  has  not  been  burned  alive  in  this  fire  in 
the  early  days  of  its  testimony.  But  out  of  the  fire 
the  Lord  has  delivered  all  the  truths  vindicated  at 
the  Reformation. 

The  truth  for  which,  during  so  many  years,  we 
have  labored  together,  will  similarly  triumph.  This 
I  firmly  maintain,  because  our  conclusions  are  founded 
upon  the  application  of  the  orthodox  principle  of  in- 

17 


18  INTRODUCTION. 

terpretation  to  Holy  Scripture.  Protestants  learn 
their  creed  in  every  particular  except  one,  by  apply- 
ing to  the  Scripture  the  common  sense  rule  of  taking 
the  plain  and  obvious  sense  of  the  main  current  of 
Biblical  expressions  as  the  ruling  sense.  The  one 
exception  is  in  all  that  relates  to  man's  nature 
and  destiny.  From  first  to  last,  the  Protestant 
Churches,  imitating  the  Romish  Church,  have  per- 
sisted in  applying  to  Scripture,  on  this  matter,  a  non- 
natural  or  figurative  law  of  exegesis.  Man  is  thus 
declared  by  theology  to  be  an  immortal  being,  and 
then,  all  that  the  Bible  says  on  the  mode  of  his  gain- 
ing Eternal  Life,  and  on  the  punishment  of  those  who 
reject  God's  redeeming  mercy,  is  tortured  into  un- 
natural senses. 

This  perverseness  cannot  hold  out  long  against 
steady  protest  and  brotherly  rebuke.  Already  a 
vast  multitude  of  the  ablest  and  most  Christian  minds 
are  in  full  tevolt  against  such  perversion,  and  their 
numbers  are  increasing  daily  in  all  directions.  In 
England,  the  revolt  is  strong  enough  to  compel  the 
toleration  of  the  undersigned,  in  the  open  profession 
of  the  faith  of  life  in  Christ  in  the  principal  post  of 
London  Independency,  for  the  past  year,*  a  post  of 
which  I  was  not  indeed  worthy,  but  which  has  given 

*  Chairmanship  of  the  London  Association  of  Congregational 
Ministers,  embracing  nearly  one  hundred  members. — J.  H.  P 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

me  an  opportunity  of  proving  that  we  are  heartily- 
one  with  our  brethren,  in  all  other  matters  pertain- 
ing to  Evangelical  Religion.  Not  a  voice  has  been 
raised  in  opposition  to  this  appointment,  and  it  is 
idle  to  regard  the  circumstance  in  any  other  light 
than  as  evidence  of  the  public  sense  of  the  fact,  that 
this  doctrine  on  Immortality  has,  at  least,  a  prima 
facie  case  in  interpretation,  and  ought  no  longer  to 
be  regarded  as  a  "heresy"  deserving  of  disgrace  or 
excommunication. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  still  more  striking 
concession  of  the  London  Missionary  Society  in  con- 
ferring on  the  same  person  the  honor  of  moving  the 
adoption  of  their  Report,  last  May,  at  Exeter  Hall, — 
again  without  a  breath  of  opposition.  I  mention 
these  facts  to  prove  to  the  American  Churches  what 
is  the  state  of  public  opinion  here.  It  is  making  a 
decided  movement  towards  open  and  avowed  tolera- 
tion of  what  some  of  us  consider  the  central  idea  of 
Revelation — the  center  whence  radiate,  all  the  great 
gospel  doctrines  of  Justification,  Sanctification,  Re- 
demption and  Resurrection,  the  Deity  and  Atonement 
of  Christ,  and  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  lastly, 
the  doctrine  of  Retribution. 

Similarly  in  India,  these  ideas  are  widely  ex- 
tended among  the  most  devoted  missionaries.  I  have 
myself  superintended  a  mission  in  Calcutta  during 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

the  last  five  j^ears,  carried  forward  by  my  friend  the 
Rev.  Wm.  A.  Hobbs,  a  man  of  indefatigable  activity, 
a  fine  Bengalee  scholar,  and  a  Christian,  whose  self- 
devotion  has  won  the  affection  of  the  whole  mission- 
ary body  in  Bengal.  Not  a  word  of  "  forbidding " 
him  has  reached  our  ears.  Not  a  syllable  of  discour- 
agement, such  as  we  hear  of  as  so  frequently  proceed- 
ing from  your  religious  journals  and  eminent  church 
authorities  in  disparagement  of  your  orthodoxy. 

I  could  fill  pages  of  your  book  with  the  record  of 
the  many  centers,  where  the  doctrine  of  Life  in 
Christ  has  rooted  itself.  In  France  and  Switzerlanxi, 
not  a  few  of  the  very  foremost  Professors  and  Pastors 
in  Paris,  Lyons,  Marseilles,  Montaubon,  Bale  and 
Geneva  are  its  devoted  supporters.  In  Germany, 
Dr.  Gess,  of  Breslau  (the  former  of  Dr.  Godet's 
mind),  has  taught  it  openly  to  his  students  for  nearly 
twenty  years.  Dr.  Dorner  speaks  of  it  with  respect  in 
the  recent  fourth  volume  of  his  System  of  Christian 
Doctrine,  In  Italy  it  is  making  way  daily.  Every- 
where, indeed,  the  sectarian  Church-rulers  excom- 
municate devoted  laborers,  like  Cocorda  of  La 
Tour  and  Byse  of  Brussels,  for  teaching  it.  But 
everywhere  it  speeds.     So  is  it  in  China  and  Japan. 

In  our  own  Universities,  specially  at  Cambridge, 
the  avowed  adherents  are  among  the  foremost  and 
most  trusted  authorities  in  these  places:  Professor 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

Stokes,  Professor  Adams  (the  discoverer  of  Neptune)? 
Professor  Svvainson,  the  Head  of  Christ's  College,  and 
several  others.  Close  at  home,  indeed,  the  Bankers 
and  the  Ladies  are,  in  some  cases,  ruthless  upholders 
of  the  notion  of  endless  torments  of  the  already 
miserable  London  poor.  The  Bankers  threaten  to 
withdraw  their  subscriptions  of  hundreds  of  pounds 
from  the  Church  Missionary  Society^  the  London  City 
Mission^  and  the  Evangelization  Society^  if  they  tolerate 
agents  holding  our  faith  on  immortality  in  Christ. 
The  London  City  Mission  lately  had  to  part  with 
four  of  the  best  members  of  their  Committee  because 
so  many  hundred  pounds  were  at  stake !  Another 
member  of  the  same  banking  jSrm  in  Lombard  Street 
will  not  tolerate  in  the  Baptist  Mission  any  defection 
from  the  faith  in  endless  misery  for  all  the  heathen. 
But  spite  of  every  opposition  the  truth  spreads,  and 
missionaries  are  found  to  give  up  their  posts  rather 
than  continue  to  teach  the  millions  of  India  and 
China  the  pernicious  fables  of  Xavier  and  Loyola. 

In  one  word,  the  truth  is  proving  its  character 
by  the  spiritual  quality  of  the  men  who  embrace  it. 
Time-servers  "  decline  to  say  what  they  think,"  or 
boldly  affirm  that  Christianity  has  "  left  unsettled  all 
the  chief  questions  respecting  the  nature  of  man  and 
the  nature  of  God."  But  this  last  is  impossible.  If 
the  Bible  is  written  in  metaphors  throughout,  what 


22  INTEODUOTION. 

is  the  value  of  such  a  Revelation  ?  And  why  do  your 
learned  American  writers,  so  earnest  in  supporting 
the  idea  of  endless  torments,  systematically  avoid 
grappling  with  the  positive  argument  for  Life  in 
Christ,  as  set  forth  by  its  principal  defenders  ?  Let 
them,  at  least,  give  the  indication  of  sincerity  by 
answering  in  detail,  if  they  think  you  err,  the  con- 
tents of  your  forthcoming  publication. 

Meantime,  I  steadfastly  maintain,  after  forty  years 
of  study  of  the  matter,  that  it  is  the  notion  of  the  in- 
fliction of  a  torment  in  body  and  soul  that  shall  be 
absolutely  endless,  which  alone  gives  a  foot  of  stand- 
ing ground  to  Ingersoll  in  America,  or  Bradlaugh  in 
England.  I  believe  more  firmly  than  ever  that  it  is 
a  doctrine  as  contrary  to  every  line  of  the  Bible  as  it 
is  contrary  to  every  moral  instinct  of  humanity. 

God  grant  that  soon  a  "  great  company  "  of  your 
presbyters  may  "  become  obedient  to  the  faith.*' 
I  am,  dear  Mr.  Pettingell, 
Yours  sincerely, 

Edward  Whitb. 
London,  Kov.,  1883. 


THE  UNSPEAKABLE  GIFT. 


PART    THE    FIRST. 


The  Question  of  Human  Immortality  considered  in 
the  Light  of  History,  Reason  and  Philosophy. 

**  There  are  some  of  us,  and  to  this  class  I  myself  belong,  who 
have  taken  a  definite  position.  We  have  reached  the  conclusion 
that  Eternal  Life  is  the  gift  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ;  and  this  life 
is  not  given  to  those  who  reject  the  Gospel,  but  given  in  the  new 
birth  to  those  who  believe,  and  who  are  thereby  made  partakers  of  the 
divine  nature.  We  warn  men  that  while  they  continue  in  impeni- 
tence they  fail  to  secure  it;  and  if  they  continue  impenitent  to  the 
end,  they  are  destined  to  indignation  and  wrath,  tribulation  and 
anguish;  ....  that  their  punishment  will  not  regenerate,  but  destroy 
them;  that  in  the  fires  to  which  they  are  destined,  they  will  not 
be  purified,  but  consumed,  and  that  from  the  second  death  there  is  no 
resurrection.  I  cannot  tell  to  what  extent  these  modifications  of 
the  earlier  doctrine  have  affected  the  convictions  of  Congregational 
ministers  and  churches.  The  change,  if  there  has  been  change,  has 
been  almost  a  silent  one.  I  believe  that  very  few  ministers  have 
declared  that  they  have  abandoned  the  older  doctrine.  I  believe  in 
those  cases  in  which  it  has  been  explicitly  and  emphatically  aban- 
doned, and  the  theory  of  Life  in  Christ  earnestly  and  emphatically 
maintained,  churches  and  congregations  have  accepted  the  transi- 
tion without  much  surprise,  and  without  any  protest.  This,  at 
least,  has  been  true,  in  my  own  case;  and  I  wish,  with  the  greatest 
possible  emphasis,  to  state  that,  in  my  own  experience,  the  recep- 
tion of  this  doctrine  has  not  only  not  enfeebled  my  belief  in  the 
great  doctrines  of  the  evangelical  faith,  and  especially  in  the  doc- 
trines of  Incarnation,  the  Atonement,  and  Regeneration,  but  has 
given  to  all  those  doctrines  a  firmer  hold  on  my  intellect,  my  con- 
science and  my  heart." — R.  W.  Dale,  d.d.,  of  Birmingham,  to  the 
Con.qregational  Union  of  England  and  Wales,  1874. 


CHAPTER  I. 

In  Limine.    The   Nature   and   Limitations   op  thb 
Question. 

Before  entering  upon  the  discussion  of  the  question 
in  hand,  it  is  important  for  us  carefully  to  consider  what 
the  question  really  is.  This  has  been  rendered  the  more 
important  by  the  treatment  it  has  received,  both  from 
its  friends  and  foes.  The  former  have  too  often  asso* 
ciated  it  with  various  other  questions  quite  irrelevant  or 
inconsequential,  and  have  so  advocated  them,  and  given 
them  such  prominence  as  greatly  to  obscure  and  preju- 
dice the  main  question.  The  latter  have  always  been 
more  willing  to  discuss  the  minor  issues  than  the  main 
question.  Indeed,  they  have  almost  uniformly  so  mis- 
stated it  and  misrepresented  it,  as  to  confuse  the  minds 
of  honest  inquirers,  and  to  deter  them  from  any  fair 
consideration  of  it. 

The  reader  should  understand  in  the  outset,  and 
bear  in  mind  : — 

I.  That  it  is  not  a  question  of  human  immortality 
or  non-immortality,  as  a  fact,  as  argued  by  Christians  on 
the  one  hand,  and  opposed  by  infidels  on  the  other,  that 
we  are  about  to  discuss.  We  fully  believe  in  the  pos- 
sible, yea  actual  immortality  of  man,  whensoever  he  shall 
be  fit  to  enjoy  the  boon.  We  believe  it  was  God's 
original  purpose  to  give  immortality  to  man,  and  that 
he  might  have  been  exempt  from  death  had  he  never 
sinned,  and  that  it  is  still  His  purpose  to  immortalize 
him, — ^but  not  in  sin  and  misery, — but  only  by  a  restora- 

Ion  to  holiness. 
2  25- 


26  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

We  hope  for  immortality  as  confidently  as  our 
opposers,  and  we  advocate  the  doctrine  more  earnestly 
than  they,  if  possible.  But  we  differ  from  them  in  the 
grounds  of  our  hope.  We  advocate  it  as  a  Christian 
doctrine :  they  as  a  doctrine  of  philosophy :  they  claim 
it  from  Adam  by  their  natural  birth :  we  from  Christ, 
only  by  a  new  spiritual  birth,  and  a  resurrection  from  the 
dead :  they  believe  it  to  be  the  natural  endowment  of 
every  man :  we  believe  it  to  be  a  supernatural  endow- 
ment— yea,  a  gift  of  God's  grace,  through  redemption  by 
Christ. 

We  do  not  argue  it  as  a  doctrine  of  universalism,  as 
they  do ;  but  as  a  special  gift  of  grace  to  those  who  are 
saved,  and  to  them  only. 

Among  the  many  passages  of  Scripture  in  which  our 
thesis  is  plainly  enunciated,  we  need  now  to  quote  only 
the  following  simple  text,  which  sets  it  forth,  both  posi. 
tively  and  negatively,  so  clearly  and  in  such  categories" 
terms,  that  it  would  seem  to  be  impossible  for  any  one 
who  accepts  the  testimony  of  Holy  Writ  to  gainsay  or 
resist  its  force. 

"  He  that  believeth  not  God,  liath  made  him  a  liar: 
because  he  hath  not  believed  in  the  witness  that  God 
hath  borne  concerning  His  Son.  And  tbe  witness  is 
tliis,  tliat  God  grave  unto  us  Eternal  Life,  and  this 
Life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the 
Lite;  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  NOT  the  Life." 
(1  John  V.  10-13,  Revised  Version.) 

II.  It  is  not  concerning  the  nature  and  destiny  of  the 
SOUL  of  man,  that  we  are  to  inquire  ;  but  concerning  the 

MAN  HIMSELF. 

There  are  various  speculative  theories  of  the  nature  of 
man.  We  have  considered  some  of  them  in  our  larger 
volume, "  The  Life  Everlasting P    We  cannot  discuss  them 


Chap.  I.]  IN  LIMINE.  27 

in  this  smaller  one,  nor  is  it  important,  for  we  do  not 
rest  our  argument  on  any  one  of  them. 

Of  what  the  soul  of  man  consists,  pure  science  can  tell 
us  nothing.  Indeed,  science  cannot  tell  us  whether  man 
has  any  soul  as  an  entity  distinct  from  the  body.  Nor 
does  Scripture  give  us  any  warrant  for  dogmatizing  as  to 
its  independent  nature,  and  asserting  positively,  as  many 
do,  that  it  can  consciously  exist,  and  exercise  all  the 
functions  of  an  active,  conscious  personality,  apart  from 
the  body.  Without  dogmatizing  on  a  subject  which 
grows  more  and  more  difficult  the  more  it  is  examined, 
and  in  regard  to  which  the  wisest  are  the  most  diffident, 
we  are  free  to  confess  that  we  have  never  been  able  to 
find  any  good  evidence  from  Scripture — certainly  not 
from  science,  to  believe  that  man  can  exist  as  an  intelli- 
gent, sensitive,  responsible  person,  in  a  disorganized  con- 
dition ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  he  can  be  dead  and  alive 
at  the  same  time,  as  is  commonly  believed  to  be  his  ab- 
normal condition  between  death  and  the  resurrection. 
But,  be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  the  ultimate  state  of  man 
that  especially  concerns  us  now. 

The  extensive  prevalence  of  the  Platonic  philosophy, 
which  attributes  to  man  an  indestructible  soul  independ- 
ent of  the  body — which  is  at  best  but  a  speculation — has 
put  a  new  meaning  into  the  word  soul,  which  is  quite 
different  from  the  sense  in  which  it  is  employed  in  the 
Scriptures — as  we  will  show — and  has  introduced  into 
our  theological  teaching,  and  into  our  literature  generally, 
new  forms  of  expression  when  treating  of  the  destiny  of 
man,  not  to  be  found  in  the  Word  of  God,  such  as  "  the 
immortal  soul,"  "  the  ever-living  soul,"  "  the  never-dying 
Boul,"  etc. ;  and  our  dictionaries  have  incorporated  this 
deathless  nature  of  the  soul  into  the  very  definition  of 
the  word,  as  its  distinguishing  characteristic.     This  is 


28  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

actually  a  pre-judgment  of  the  whole  question.  At  least, 
it  misleads  and  confuses  the  minds  of  inquirers  who 
would  know  what  is  the  true  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures 
concerning  the  destiny  of  man.  It  sets  them  to  disput- 
ing about  the  soul  of  man,  when  the  real  question  which 
the  Scriptures  set  before  us  is  concerning  the  whole  man, 
body  and  soul  in  one  ;  man,  not  in  any  transitional  state, 
but  as  reconstituted  in  the  resurrection. 

We  need  not  stop  to  inquire  what  is  the  condition  of 
man  immediately  after  death,  concerning  which  the 
Scriptures  give  us  very  little  light.  Our  chief  inquiry  is 
concerning  the  man  that  now  is,  to  whom  the  Word  of 
God  is  addressed:  the  man  whom  God  created  and 
placed  under  law;  the  man  who  sinned  and  forfeited 
the  life — all  the  life — that  was  given  him;  the  man  to 
whom  God  said,  "  Thou  shalt  surely  die"  ;  the  man  who 
was  redeemed  by  the  death  of  the  Son  of  God ;  the 
man  to  whom  the  unspeakable  gift  of  Eternal  Life  is 
again  offered  in  the  Gospel,  and  who  is  exhorted  to  lay 
hold  of  it ;  the  man  who  will  be  raised  and  judged  ac- 
cording to  the  deeds  done  in  the  body — What  will 
become  of  him?  The  righteous,  with  new  spiritual 
bodies  like  unto  Christ's  glorious  body  will  then  enter 
upon  a  new  life,  a  life  of  joy  and  blessedness  that  shall 
never  end — this,  no  one  can  doubt — and  the  wicked — who, 
according  to  the  Word  of  God,  shall  then  "  be  punished 
with  everlasting  destruction  " — shall  they  too  enter  upon 
a  life — a  life  of  misery  that  shall  never  end  ?  or  shall 
they  perish,  soul  and  body  together,  in  the  Second  Death, 
from  which  there  is  no  resurrection  ? 

III.  It  is  not  the  Future  Punishment  of  the  wicked, 
nor  even  the  Future  Rewards  of  the  righteous,  that  is 
the  special  subject  of  our  inquiry;  but  The  Gift  of  God, 
which  is  Eternal  Life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


Chap.  I.]  IN  LIMINE.  29 

That  the  wicked  are  punished,  and  punished  according  to 
their  ill  desert,  after  death  for  the  sins  they  commit 
in  this  life ;  and  that  the  righteous  are  rewarded  for  all 
their  good  deeds,  is  too  clearly  revealed  in  the  Scriptures 
to  admit  of  any  question  by  those  who  accept  their  testi- 
mony. But  it  is  a  great  mistake,  which  too  many  make, 
and  a  fruitful  source  of  error,  on  the  subject  of  our  in- 
quiry, to  suppose  that  the  death  which  is  the  common 
lot  of  all  men  since  the  fall,  is  that  punishment,  or  that 
the  Eternal  Life,  which  is  a  gift  of  grace,  is  the  reward  of 
the  righteous.  No  man,  however  free  he  may  be  from 
personal  sins,  can  hope  for  exemption  from  this  death ; 
nor  can  any  one,  however  full  he  may  be  of  good  works, 
establish  any  claim  to  this  Life  Eternal,  on  the  score  of 
merit.  The  punishment  which  is  due  to  the  sinner  for 
his  own  sins,  and  the  death  which  he  dies  as  a  mortal 
man,  are  two  distinct  things,  and  they  should  never  be 
confounded  with  each  other,  as  they  commonly  are 
in  the  popular  mind.  The  same  distinction  is  to  be  ob- 
served between  the  rewards  of  the  righteous,  and  the 
unspeakable  gift  of  God — the  Eternal  Life— which  is  the 
subject  of  our  inquiry. 

The  Scriptures  assure  us  that,  "  As  in  Adam  all  die,  so 
in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  *'  It  is  appointed  unto 
men — all  men — once  to  die,  but  after  this  the  judg- 
ment." Had  it  not  been  for  God's  purpose  of  grace  and 
mercy,  made  known  in  the  Gospel,  this  death  would 
have  been  the  final  end  of  all  men.  But  the  Gospel  reveals 
to  us  a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  another  life — a 
Second  life, — which  is  pure,  spiritual  and  eternal,  for  all 
who  shall  be  fitted  to  enjoy  it;  and  a  /Second/ death,  from 
which  there  is  no  resurrection,  for  all  who  have  no  fitness 
for  this  immortal  life. 

Now  this  is  the  Life  which  is  freely  offered  to  all  men 


30  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIET.  [Part  I. 

in  the  Gospel,  without  money,  and  without  price — the 
Life  which  we  are  exhorted  to  seek,  to  lay  hold  of,  to  re- 
ceive as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ;  and  hav- 
ing received  it,  the  way  is  open  for  us  to  lay  up  our 
treasures  in  heaven,  and  to  accumulate  merit  as  abund- 
antly as  we  please.  We  are  assured  that  there  shall  be 
distinctions,  according  to  merit,  in  the  recompense  of  the 
righteous,  and  that  not  one  good  deed,  even  to  the  giving 
of  a  cup  of  cold  water  to  a  disciple  for  the  sake  of  Christ, 
shall  fail  of  its  full  reward. 

The  "  Second  death "  is  the  death  we  are  warned 
against,  and  urged  to  escape,  while  we  may.  Though 
the  First  death  may  not  be  avoided,  the  Second, 
which  shall  issue  in  utter  destruction,  may  be.  What 
various  degrees  of  punishment  shall  be  meted  out  to  the 
unsaved  by  the  hand  of  justice  ?  How  many  shall  fall 
under  this  dreadful  doom  of  the  Second  death  ?  What 
the  number  of  stripes  that  shall  be  inflicted  upon  "  those 
who  have  sinned  without  law,  and  shall  perish  without 
law  ?"  How  many  and  how  heavy  the  stripes  which  they 
shall  deserve  who  have  sinned  against  both  the  Law  and 
the  Gospel,  and  have  rejected  and  despised  an  offered 
Savior,  and  what  shall  be  their  disappointment,  their 
rage,  their  anguish  of  spirit,  and  their  torment,  and  how 
long  all  this  shall  endure,  before  the  fires  of  Gehenna  shall 
utterly  consume  them,  and  the  universe  shall  be  rid  of 
their  presence — we  forbear  even  to  guess.  Nor  need  we 
now  inquire,  for  this  is  not  our  theme.  It  is  just  the 
opposite  of  all  this, — The  Unspeakable  Gift  of  God. 

This  gloomy  side  has  its  fit  place  for  consideration,  but 
it  now  comes  only  incidentally  into  view  as  the  back- 
ground of  the  glorious  picture  we  are  considering. 

Entertaining  large  views  of  the  saving  power  of  Hira 
who  "  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 


Chap.  I.]  IN   LIMINE.  31 

Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  on  Him  might  not  perish, 
but  have  Everlasting  Life,"  we  would  gladly  hope,  if  we 
could,  for  the  salvation  of  all  the  children  of  Adam.  But 
bowing  reverently,  as  we  do,  to  the  teaching  of  His 
Word,  we  cannot  entertain  any  such  hope.  Alas  !  that 
Word  assures  us  that,  at  the  last  day,  "  many  "  will  be 
adjudged  to  be  fit  only  for  destruction  ;  that  the  good 
wheat  only  will  be  gathered  into  the  garner,  and  that  the 
chaff  will  be  "  burned  up  with  unquenchable  fire"  ;  "And 
then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the 
kingdom  of  their  Father," — a  kingdom  which  is  not  only 
everlasting,  but  co-extensive  with  the  universe. 

The  notion  of  two  everlasting  kingdoms,  running 
parallel  with  each  other,  the  one,  a  kingdom  of  purity 
and  blessedness  ;  the  other,  a  kingdom  of  sin  and  sorrow  ; 
the  one,  to  resound  with  the  praises  and  joyful  songs  of 
redeemed  men  and  angels ;  and  the  other,  with  the 
groans  and  blasphemies  of  lost  sinners  and  devils  to  all 
eternity,  is  not  a  doctrine  of  the  Bible,  it  is  a  relic  of 
Persian  dualism  and  pagan  superstition.  It  came  into  the 
Christian  church  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  century, 
with  that  other  pagan  doctrine  of  which  it  is  the  legitimate 
fruit — the  natural  and  necessary  immortality  of  sinners. 
It  was  incorporated  into  her  creed  by  the  philosophic 
schoolmen  of  the  dark  ages,  and  has  been  handed  down  to 
us  through  the  medium  of  an  apostate  Church ;  but  is  re- 
garded by  many,  even  to  this  day,  as  a  part  of  the  faith 
once  delivered  to  the  saints.  It  is  full  time  that  it  were 
relegated  to  its  source,  and  that  those  who  call  themselves 
Christians  returned  to  the  simple  faith  of  the  Gospel,  as 
taught  by  the  Master  Himself,  and  His  apostles. 

Though  the  rewards  and  punishments  that  are  set 
before  us  in  this  Gospel  as  necessary  stimulants  to  action 
in  our  earthly  career  are  not  to  be  ignored,  it  is  time  that 


?2  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

enlightened  Christians,  in  this  age  of  the  world,  should 
begin  to  have  some  higher  conception  of  the  Divine 
Economy,  than  that  it  exists  merely  for  the  purpose  of 
administering  rewards  and  penalties.  As  children  under 
the  nurture  and  tutelage  of  a  kind  parent  often  look  only 
at  the  rewards  that  are  promised  to  stimulate  them  to 
right  action,  and  to  the  punishments  that  are  threatened 
to  deter  them  from  wrong-doing,  and  think  that  if  they 
gain  the  one  and  escape  the  other,  nothing  more  is  in- 
tended by  their  guardians,  or  to  be  desired  by  themselves; 
so  under  the  discipline  of  our  heavenly  Father,  we  are 
too  apt  to  regard  the  rewards  He  offers,  and  the  penal- 
ties He  threatens,  as  our  highest  motives  for  action,  and 
that  He  exercises  His  rule  over  us  merely  for  the  purpose 
of  administering  them.  It  is  true  that  rewards  and  pen- 
alties are  a  necessary  part  of  any  system  of  government 
over  imperfect  creatures ;  but  they  belong  to  a  lower  and 
imperfect  stage  of  discipline.  When  character  is  per- 
fected, and  right  habits  are  formed,  and  holy  action 
becomes  spontaneous,  as  will  be  the  case  when  the  object 
of  our  earthly  training  is  fully  accomplished,  these  con- 
straining motives  will  be  no  longer  needed  ;  nor  will  they 
be  thought  of.  We  shall  act  automatically,  as  it  were, 
doing  that  which  is  right,  and  pure,  and  lovely,  and  that 
only,  from  the  instinctive  promptings  of  a  holy  nature. 
It  is  for  this  perfected  stage  of  being  that  our  heavenly 
Father  would  fit  us.  He  would  lift  us  out  of  this  animal, 
material,  mortal  condition,  in  which  we  begin  our  career, 
into  that  higher  realm,  which  is  purely  spiritual,  and 
make  us  fit — if  we  will  consent  to  it — for  companionship 
with  the  holy  angels,  and  for  union  with  Himself  in  love, 
and  for  the  Life  that  is  Everlasting.  This  is  the  end 
we  should  seek  even  now,  and  the  end  we  shall 
eeek,   just  so  far  as  we  go  out  of  ourselves,  and  rise 


Chap.  I.]  IN  LIMINE.  33 

toward  Him,  the  great  object  of  our  confidence  and  love. 
This  is  the  end  He  will  secure  for  all  who  will  throw 
open  their  hearts  to  the  influence  of  His  grace,  and  per- 
mit Him  to  work  His  own  good  pleasure  within  them. 

But  alas !  for  those  who  turn  away  from  Him,  and 
close  their  ears  to  His  call,  and  shut  their  hearts  against 
the  sweet  influence  of  His  Spirit — who  desire  and  seek 
after  those  things  only  that  are  earthly  and  perishing. 
There  is  no  place  for  them  in  His  Spiritual  Everlasting 
Kingdom, — there  can  be  none  for  them.  They  must 
perish  in  their  own  corruption. 

IV.  We  have  no  new  translation  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures to  propose,  nor  do  we  desire  to  have  a  new  mean- 
ing put  upon  any  of  the  well-chosen  terms  of  the  original. 

It  is  true,  we  cannot  but  regard  the  translation  of 
many  passages  as  imperfectly  done,  and  as  failing  to  give 
the  real  force  of  the  original,  and  we  are  hapjoy  to  see 
that  not  a  few  of  them  have  been  improved — and  others 
might  have  been — in  the  "  New  Version."  But  the  Old 
Version,  as  it  was,  is  all  that  we  need  to  establish  the 
doctrine  for  which  we  contend,  if  its  explicit  and  uniform 
testimony  be  accepted ;  or  rather,  its  explicit  and  uni- 
form testimony  is  the  doctrine,  and  the  only  doctrine,  on 
this  question  for  which  we  contend.  But  no  version,  or 
revision,  however  close  it  may  be  to  the  original,  will 
serve  to  bring  us  any  nearer  to  the  truth  if  scholastic  and 
speculative  theologizers  are  to  be  allowed  to  twist  and 
warp  its  plain  utterances  to  suit  their  own  theories.  All 
that  we  desire  is,  that  those  who  have  been  led  away  from 
the  truth  on  this  question,  and  involved  in  the  mazes  of 
eiTor  by  these  insidious  methods,  should  be  brought  back 
to  the  simple  teaching  of  God's  Word,  as  it  lies  every- 
where on  the  surface  of  its  pages,  and  open  to  any  sincere 
inquirer. 

2* 


34  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

Here  we  take  our  stand.  We  must  insist  that  those 
who  would  discuss  with  us  this  doctrine  of  Immortality 
shall  be  loyal  to  the  Word  of  God,  which  is,  and  must  be, 
our  supreme  authority  on  this  question.  Whatever  light 
science  or  philosophy,  in  their  advance,  may  throw  upon 
this  or  any  other  subject,  we  gladly  accept,  not  fearing 
that  all  truth,  so  far  as  it  is  rightly  apprehended,  will  be 
harmonious  and  self-consistent,  and  whatever  progress 
may  be  made  by  repeated  revisions,  in  the  understanding 
of  mysterious  and  ambiguous  passages,  of  which  there 
are  not  a  few,  we  gratefully  welcome.  But  if  there  be 
any  one  doctrine  more  than  another  which  we  are  to  take 
directly  from  the  Word  of  God  by  reverently  and  honestly 
inquiring,  "What  saith  the  Scriptures?"  it  is  this. 
Neither  science,  nor  philosophy,  nor  sentiment  is  able  to 
teach  it  to  us.  We  hold  it  to  be  treason  to  the  Scrip- 
tures, and  to  the  God  of  the  Scriptures,  for  one  to 
reject  their  plainly-spoken,  explicit  testimony  on  this 
question,  and  attempt  to  read  his  own  speculations,  or 
the  speculations  of  others,  however  learned  they  may  be, 
into  them,  or  to  try  to  make  them  agree  with  his  own 
preconceived  notions,  by  putting  a  forced  or  unnatural 
construction  upon  their  language.  And  yet,  this  is  the 
grave  charge  that  must  be  made — if  the  truth  be  told 
— against  the  philosophic  Christianity  of  the  schools  ; 
and  the  only  excuse  that  can  be  made  is,  that  their  phil- 
osophy requires  it,  and  tradition  has  authorized  it,  and 
"  the  people  love  to  have  it  so." 

V.  We  have  no  purpose  or  desire  to  attack  or  oppose 
the  Evangelical  system,  usually  called  "  Orthodoxy,"  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  our  special  desire  to  maintain  it. 
We  love  and  honor  it ;  and  it  is  because  of  our  fidelity 
to  it  that  we  are  anxious  to  have  it  freed  from  this  mon- 
strous error  of  immortality  in  sin  and  misery  that  has 


Chap.  1.]  TN  Lii^NE.  35 

fastened  upon  its  very  roots,  and  thrown  a  blight  and 
false  coloring  over  all  its  doctrines,  and  is  doing  more 
than  all  its  other  enemies  to  bring  it  into  contempt.  If 
this  great  traditional  error  could  be  eradicated,  so  that 
the  true  Gospel  doctrine  of  Life  Eternal  only  in  Christ, 
and  its  correlated  doctrines  might  be  permitted  to  stand 
forth  in  their  primitive  simplicity,  and  in  their  true  light, 
there  would  be  little  room  or  occasion  for  the  cavils  of 
opposers  and  infidels. 

When  we  come  to  recognize  our  mortal  condition  as 
the  children  of  a  sinful  race,  the  necessity  of  a  New  Birth 
in  order  to  a  life  that  shall  never  end  becomes  apparent; 
the  Divinity  of  that  Savior,  through  whom  alone  this 
New  Life  is  given,  can  no  longer  be  questioned;  the 
Salvation  He  offers,  instead  of  being  a  problematical 
rescue  from  an  incredible  doom,  which,  though  threatened, 
could  never  be  inflicted  by  a  God  of  justice  and  love, 
becomes  a  heavenly  boon  of  priceless  value  to  be  earnestly 
sought  for  and  thankfully  accepted  by  perishing  mortals ; 
and  Hedemption^  instead  of  seeming  to  be  an  act  of 
justice  which  every  child  of  Adam  has  a  right  to  demand 
at  the  hands  of  his  Maker,  as  it  must  under  the  shadow 
of  this  error,  becomes  a  pure  act  of  grace;  and  Christ,  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God,  is  exalted  to  his  true  place  in  the 
scheme  of  our  Salvation,  and  entitled  to  the  highest 
gratitude  and  love  of  the  world  as  the  only  Savior  (or  Life 
Giver,  Syriac  Version)  of  men.  The  great  doctrines  of  the 
Second  Advent^  the  Resurrection  of  the  dead,  the  General 
Judgment^  and  The  Life  Everlasting^  which  stand  out 
so  conspicuously  in  the  Gospels  and  in  the  Epistles,  and 
upon  which  the  early  disciples  fixed  all  their  hopes  for 
the  future,  but  which,  alas  !  under  the  blighting  influence 
of  this  error,  have  lost  their  true  place  in  the  creed  of  the 
Church,  and  in  the  preaching  of  its  ministers,  and  have 


36  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

come  to  be  shadowy  myths,  will  again,  in  the  light  of 
this  truth,  be  invested  with  all  their  primitive  power,  as 
verities  close  at  hand. 

We  cannot  stop  to  discuss  these  correlated  doctrines, 
and  to  reset  them  in  their  appropriate  places  in  this 
evangelical  system  of  theology,  nor  need  we,  for  if  we 
can  but  brush  away  the  clouds  which  this  false  dogma  of 
paganism  has  thrown  around  them,  and  bring  out  again 
from  its  eclipse  the  one  doctrine  of  Life  and  Immortality ^ 
as  it  is  brought  to  light  in  the  Gospel,  this  whole  system 
will  need  no  defence.  To  this  end  will  our  efforts  be 
directed  in  this  volume. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Deathiess  Nature  op  Ma]s^  —  Origin   and  History 
OF  THE  Dogma. 

To  speculate  on  the  origin  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
deathless  nature  of  man,  would  seem,  to  those  who  ad- 
mit the  truth  of  the  Mosaic  narrative  in  the  third  chap- 
ter of  Genesis,  quite  unnecessary ;  for  Moses  there  tells 
us  that  the  notion,  "  Ye  shall  not  surely  die ;  ye  shall 
be  as  gods,  who  live  forever,  knowing  good  and  evil," 
was  first  whispered  into  the  ears  of  Eve  in  Paradise,  as 
it  has  been  into  the  minds  of  her  children  in  all  ages. 
But  as  there  are  many  who  will  not  accept  this  as  a  true 
record, — especially  so  far  as  their  favorite  doctrine  is 
concerned, — we  reserve  the  discussion  of  this  record 
till  we  come  to  our  Biblical  argument,  and  begin  with 
the  remark,  to  which  all  will  assent :  That  it  is  a  very  an- 
cient belief.  If,  however,  this  record  of  Moses  be  not 
accepted  as  a  true  account  of  its  origin,  we  may  well 
despair  of  tracing  it  to  its  source. 

It  is  a  very  plausible  doctrine,  as  is  evident  from  the 
readiness  with  which  it  has  been  received  in  all  parts 
of  the  world,  and  from  the  ease  with  which  it  has  in- 
sinuated itself  into  the  literature  and  theology  of  all 
ages  and  all  peoples. 

It  is  certainly  a  very  popular  doctrine,  as  all  who  have 
attempted  to  call  it  in  question  can  testify.  Indeed,  it 
could  not  be  otherwise  than  popular,  wherever  it  has 
been  received.  There  is  something  so  flattering  to  the 
pride  of  man,  in  the  idea  of  possessing  a  godlike  nature, 

37 


38  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

that  is  absolutely  indestructible,  something  so  responsive 
to  the  instincts  and  cravings  of  his  soul, —  sentiments  im- 
planted within  him  by  his  Creator  as  a  motive  to  perse- 
verance in  the  way  of  holiness,  and  which  sin  itself, — 
though  fatal  to  his  hopes, —  cannot  eradicate,  and  which 
still  linger  there,  after  he  has  forfeited  the  boon,  to 
urge  him  to  seek  for  its  recovery,  to  which  the  mercy  of 
God  encourages  him ;  there  is  something  so  dismal  in 
the  thought  of  death  and  extinction  that  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  that  man,  sinful  and  mortal  though  he  may 
be,  should  still  cling  to  this  hope  as  he  clings  to  his  life, 
and  should  fain  try  to  believe,  however  dark  his  pros- 
pect, that  he  shall  never  die.  It  is  a  very  delusive  doc- 
trine, as  will  be  evident  when  we  come  to  consider  its 
influence  on  the  theodicy  of  the  Christian  Church. 

This  hope,  under  various  forms,  and  mixed  with  many 
fanciful  notions,  entered  into  the  religions  of  the  most 
ancient  nations.  We  find  traces  of  it  among  the  Chal- 
deans, the  Persians,  and  the  Egyptians.  Socrates,  four 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  argued  it  from  the  nature 
of  man,  and  the  instincts  of  the  human  soul ;  and  Plato, 
his  pupil,  one  of  the  greatest  philosophers  the  world 
ever  saw,  and  whose  speculations  have  had  more  influ- 
ence over  the  religious  opinions  of  mankind,  than  any 
other  philosopher,  and,  we  may  say,  than  all  other  phi- 
losophers combined,  formulated  it  into  definite  propo- 
sitions, and  incorporated  them  into  his  system.  He 
held  that  man  has  actually  two  souls,  an  animal  and  a 
spiritual  soul.  Though  the  animal  soul  is  perishable,  the 
spiritual  soul  is  imperishable.  But  to  give  a  logical  con- 
sistency to  this  doctrine,  he  taught  that  it  is  not  only 
immortal,  a  parte  pos%  but  eternal,  a  parte  ante:  that  it 
never  had  a  creator;  and  therefore  having  had  no  begin- 
ning it  can  never  have  an  end. 


Chap.  II.]  DEATHLESS   NATITRE   OF  MAN.  S9 

The  idea  of  the  natural  immortality  of  man  found  no 
place  among  the  Hebrews,  under  Moses  and  the  earlier 
prophets.  They  were  kept  separate  and  secluded  from 
the  surrounding  pagan  nations,  to  prevent  them  from 
imbibing  their  false  and  corrupting  notions.  It  was  not 
until  after  their  long  captivity,  nor  indeed  until  after 
Plato's  philosophy  had  come  to  prevail  throughout  the 
Grecian  world,  and  the  Hebrew  people  were  brought 
into  association  with  its  disciples,  that  their  Rabbinical 
teachers  and  Pharisaical  doctors  began  to  entertain 
these  philosophical  speculations.  But  there  is  not  one 
single  hint  of  any  such  doctrine  in  all  the  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures, — there  are  indeed,  intimations,  more 
or  less  distinct,  of  a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  and  of 
the  destruction  of  the  wicked,  in  what  is  more  plainly 
revealed  in  the  New,  as  a  second  deaths  and,  indeed, 
assurances  to  the  righteous,  that  they  would  be  re- 
deemed from  the  power  of  the  grave,  and  that  "  length 
of  days  forever  and  ever "  would  be  given  them ;  but 
not  one  hint  can  be  found  in  all  these  Divine  Oracles 
that  immortality  would  be  the  portion  of  all  men.  We 
boldly  challenge  our  opponents  to  produce  one  such 
passage.  It  is  only  in  the  Talmud  and  commentaries 
of  the  Eabbins  by  which  the  people  were  taught  how 
to  explain  the  Scriptures, — or  rather,  to  explain  them 
away,  as  people  now  are,  by  the  same  means, — and 
how  to  "make  the  Word  of  God  of  none  effect,"  as 
Christ  said,  that  we  find  any  such  notions  among  them. 

So  when  Christ  came,  we  find  the  Pharisees,  who,  as 
a  sect,  had  become  largely  Platonized,  rejecting  scorn- 
fully the  idea  of  their  need  of  a  Saviour  to  give  them 
Eternal  Life,  while  the  Sadducees,  at  the  other  extreme, 
— for  one  extreme  always  induces  its  opposite, — denied 
the  existence  of  any  life  whatever  beyond  the  present. 


40  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  T, 

But  our  Lord,  standing  between  them  both,  and  taking 
part  with  neither,  proclaimed  everywhere,  and  with 
wonderful  emphasis,  and  constant  reiteration,  that  there 
could  be  no  life  beyond  death  but  by  a  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  and  no  Eternal  Life  but  through  Himself 
as  the  Giver  of  it.  "I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Life."  "  He  that  believeth  on  the  Son  hath  Everlasting 
Life,  and  he  that  belicA^eth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see 
Life."  This  is  the  special  theme  of  the  Gospel  of  John, 
as  it  is  also  of  his  epistles, —  Life  and  Immortality  only 
through  Christ, — by  a  new  birth  and  a  resurrection  from 
the  dead.  "  This  is  the  record,  that  God  hath  given 
unto  us  Eternal  Life,  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son ;  he  that 
hath  the  Son  hath  the  Life,  and  he  that  hath  not  the 
Son  of  God  hath  not  the  Life."  It  stands  out  conspic- 
uously in  the  writings  of  all  His  other  immediate  disci- 
ples. This  is  *'  the  inheritance,  incorruptible  and  unde- 
filed,  that  fadeth  not  away,"  of  which  Peter  speaks,  and 
the  "  unspeakable  gift,"  for  which  Paul  thanked  God, 
and  which  he  urges  his  brethren  so  earnestly  to  "  lay 
hold  of."  This  is  the  "faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints,"  and  the  source  of  their  strength  and  joy  amid 
all  their  trials  and  persecutions,  and  their  "  confidence  " 
even  in  dying,  which  they  are  exhorted  to  "  hold  fast  to 
the  end,"  and  which  they  all  did  hold  fast,  till  the  sim- 
plicity of  their  faith  was  corrupted  by  the  incoming  of 
that  same  philosophical  delusion  that  had  corrupted  the 
faith  of  the  Hebrews  before  the  coming  of  Christ, — yea, 
that  corrupted  the  faith  of  the  first  pair  in  Eden.  "  I 
fear,"  says  Paul,  in  writing  to  the  Corinthians,  "lest  by 
any  means,  as  the  serpent  beguiled  Eve  through  his 
subtilty,  so  your  minds  should  be  corrupted  from  the 
simplicity  that  is  in  Christ."  "  I^eware  lest  any  man 
spoil  you  through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  after  the 


Chap.  II.]  DEATHLESS   NATTTRE    OP   MAN.  41 

traditions  of  men,  after  the  rudiments  of  this  world  and 
not  after  Christ." 

The  early  fathers  of  the  Church,  without  exception, 
held  and  taught  the  same  doctrine  respecting  the  perish- 
able nature  of  man,  and  his  need  of  a  Saviour  in  order 
to  reach  Eternal  Life,  and  used  the  very  same  language 
which  Christ  and  His  Apostles  used. 

Barnabas,  the  companion  of  Paul ;  Clement  I.,  also 
one  of  Paul's  fellow-laborers,  and,  as  is  supposed,  bishop 
of  Rome;  Hermas,  whose  name  is  mentioned  in  the 
epistle  to  the  Romans ;  Ignatius,  who  was  consecrated 
bishop  of  Antioch,  probably  by  Peter,  in  a.  d.  67,  and 
who,  forty  years  afterward,  suffered  martyrdom  in  the 
Amphitheater;  Polycarp,  a  disciple  of  John,  and 
bishop  of  Smyrna,  who  in  extreme  old  age,  in  the  year 
160,  was  burned  at  the  stake ;  *  Theophilus,  another 
bishop  of  Smyrna,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  second  cen- 
tury; Iren^us,  a  pupil  of  Polycarp,  who  also  died  a 
martyr  in  the  early  part  of  the  third  century;  and  still 
later,  Arnobius  and  Lactantius,  and  many  others, 
whose  names  might  be  mentioned,  all  held  and  publicly 
taught  this  same  Christian  doctrine  of  Immortality,  only 
through  redemption  by  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead  at  His  second  coming,  and 
the  literal  destruction  of  the  wicked,  in  the  second 
deatli,  as  is  abundantly  evident  from  such  fragments  of 
their  writings  as  have  been  preserved,  and  from  the 
testimony  of  their  cotempDraries. 

*  The  document  entitled  Teaching  of  the  Tioelve  Apostles,  re- 
cently brought  to  light  by  Bishop  Bryennios,  which  was  evi- 
dently written  duiiiig  the  lifetime  of  Polycarp,  emphatically 
aud  unmistakably  sets  forth  the  same  doctrine,  and  no  other, — 
THE  WAY  OF  LiFE  (mia  tes  zoes),  and  tue  way  of  Death 
(kai  mia  tou  thanatou),  as  did  all  these  other  apostolic  fathers 
before  the  faith  of  the  Church  had  been  corrupted  by  the  Pla- 
tonic philosophy. 


42  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  L 

Justin  also,  an  eminent  Grecian  scholar  near  the 
close  of  the  second  century,  certainly  teaches  the  same 
doctrine  in  some  of  his  writings,  but  having  been  a  be- 
liever and  teacher  of  Plato's  philosophy  before  his  con- 
version, and  coming  into  the  Christian  Church  at  a  time 
when  its  primitive  faith  had  already  begun  to  feel  the 
corrupting  influence  of  this  philosophy,  which  was  so 
popular  in  the  outside  world,  and  bringing  with  him 
some  of  his  old  views  and  former  habits  of  thinking  and 
expressing  himself,  his  writings  do  not  appear  to  be 
always  and  uniformly  consistent  with  either  system  of 
doctrine.  Hence  he  is  quoted  and  claimed  on  both  sides 
of  this  question  of  the  natural  immortality  of  man.  After 
him,  in  the  progress  of  Christianity  toward  that  suprem- 
acy which  it  soon  achieved,  other  adherents  of  the  same 
school,  who  unmistakably  held  to  the  doctrines  of  their 
Grecian  master,  were  swept  into  the  Church,  and  in- 
stalled as  her  teachers  in  theology.  Among  these  were 
Athenagoras^  another  Grecian  scholar  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  second  century,  and  Tatian  and  Cyprian^ 
in  the  early  part  of  the  third, — both  African  bishops,  bit- 
ter and  bigoted  in  their  spirit, — Hippolytus^  of  the  port 
of  Rome,  and  Origen^  the  most  accomplished  scholar  of 
the  age,  but  a  man  of  ascetic  disposition,  and  of  a  spec- 
ulative mind ;  after  him  came  Athanasius,  Jerome  and 
Ambrose,  in  the  fourth  century,  and  in  the  fifth,  more 
eminent  than  them  all,  the  great  Augustme,  another 
African  bishop,  to  whom  w^  may  accredit  the  honor, 
such  as  it  is,  of  having  formulated  this  dogma,  of  the 
inherent  immortality  of  the  soul,  into  the  Christian  sys- 
tem, and  established  it  as  one  of  the  corner-stones  of  the 
so-called  "orthodox"  theology, — a  system  still  perpet- 
uated and  known  as  the  Augustinian  system.* 

♦See  note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 


Chap.  II.]  DEATHLESS   NATURE   OF  MAIT.  43 

These  theological  teachers,  in  seeking  to  reconcile  the 
dogmas  of  their  Grecian  masters  with  the  simple  doc- 
trines of  Christ,  were  quite  too  willing  to  subordinate 
divine  truth  to  human  speculations.  It  is  true,  as  Chris- 
tian believers,  they  gave  up  or  kept  in  abeyance  that 
part  of  their  heathen  master's  teaching  that  attributed 
to  man  an  eternal  existence,  a  parte  ante ;  but  they 
continued  to  hold,  with  him,  to  man's  eternal  existence 
a  parte  post.  In  this,  however,  they  and  their  modern 
followers  are  less  consistent  than  their  leader,  for  the 
one  cannot  stand  without  the  other.  Both  postulates 
belong  together ;  the  latter  has  no  logical  force  without 
the  former  to  justify  and  sustain  it. 

With  their  new  teaching,  new  forms  of  expression, 
unknown  to  the  Scriptures,  came  into  use,  and  new 
meanings  were  put  upon  those  forms  that  are  common 
to  the  Scriptures.  Instead  of  discoursing  upon  the  sal- 
vation or  loss  of  man  as  an  integer,  as  did  Christ  and 
His  immediate  followers,  they  now  begin  to  discourse 
concerning  the  soul  of  man,  in  contradistinction  from 
his  body,  and  to  give  quite  another  meaning  to  the  word 
(psuche)  "  soul."  It  is  now  called  "  the  immortal  soul," 
"that  principle  in  man  that  never  dies, — that  is  inde- 
structible," and  the  like  expressions  for  which  there  is 
no  warrant,  whatever,  in  the  Word  of  God,  but  which 
belong  only  to  that  philosophy  concerning  the  nature  of 
man,  that  they  would  read  into  it. 

To  bring  the  Scriptures  into  agreement  with  this 
heathen  philosophy,  a  new  meaning  must  be  given  to 
such  words  as  "  life,"  "  death,"  "  salvation,"  "  destruc- 
tion," etc.,  whenever  the  destiny  of  man  is  spoken  of, 
Ihich  is  to  be  considered  the  religious  or  Scriptural 
inse  of  these  words.  This  insidious  practice  of  dis- 
ffding  the  literal   meaning  of  these  plain   Scriptural 


44  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

terms,  and  taking  them  in  a  figurative,  unnatural  sense, 
whenever  the  destiny  of  man  is  referred  to,  has  been 
handed  down,  with  the  philosophy  that  requires  it,  to 
the  present  time.  It  has  entered  so  thoroughly  into  all 
our  religious  teaching,  and  has  been  so  wrought  into 
all  our  religious  literature,  that  it  seems,  to  those  who 
have  been  so  instructed,  to  be  the  only  proper  thing  to 
do.  It  is  this  more  than  anything  else  that  has  thrown 
this  whole  subject  of  the  destiny  of  the  saved  and  of 
the  lost  into  such  inexplicable  confusion,  that  honest,  un- 
lettered inquirers  know  not  what  to  believe.  No  won- 
der that  so  many  commentaries  and  expositions  are 
needed  to  tell  them  in  what  sense  to  understand  these 
simple  Bible  terms,  that  would  otherwise  be  plain 
enough,  and  how  to  explain  them  into  agreement  with 
the  popular  philosophy  of  the  day. 

These  philosophical  Christian  teachers  taught,  as 
their  successors  still  teach,  that  Christ  could  not  be  the 
actual  source  of  Eternal  Life  to  His  people,  as  He  Him- 
self declared,  for  immortality  is  the  natural  endowment 
of  all  men  from  Adam.  The  Eternal  Life  (the  zoe 
aidnios)  which  He  promised  to  give  them  must  be  a  per- 
tain blissful  condition  of  life  which  the  wicked  cannot 
enjoy,  and  the  death  and  destruction  {thanatos  hai 
apoleia)  which  are  threatened  to  the  wicked,  cannot 
mean  actual  death  and  destruction,  for  the  soul  of  man 
is  deathless  and  indestructible,  It  must  mean  a  kind  of 
metaphorical  death,  a  miserable  condition  of  life  that 
never  ends.  And  even  the  fires  of  Gehenna,  the  inex- 
tinguishable fire  {asbestos  pur) ^  the  eternal  fire  of  God, 
into  which  all  His  irreclaimable  enemies  shall  at  last  be 
cast,  to  be  consumed  like  the  chaff  of  the  threshing 
floor,  is  npt  a  consuming  fire,  but  it  is  a  peculiar  kind  of 
fire  {ignis  sapiens)^  that  only  torments  those  who  are 


Chap.  II.]    DEATHLESS  NATURE  OP  MAN.  45 

cast  into  it,  yea,  that  continually  renews  what  it  destroys 
that  it  may  torment  them  forever.  Such  is  the  Biblical 
exegesis  to  which  this  heathen  philosophy  has  given  rise, 
and  with  which  all  who  have  been  "  orthodoxically " 
educated  are  familiar ! 

Origen,  and  others  of  the  same  school,  devised  another 
way  of  evading  the  direct  testimony  of  Scripture  relat- 
ing to  the  destiny  of  man,  which,  though  equally  false 
and  delusive,  was  at  least  more  creditable  to  their  con- 
ception of  the  justice  and  mercy  of  God.  Unable  to 
accept  of  the  awful  conclusion  to  which  their  associates 
had  come,  with  respect  to  the  eternal  misery  of  the  un- 
saved, they  conceived  that  the  doom  of  death  and  ever- 
lasting destruction,  which  the  Scriptures  declare  to  be  the 
end  of  all  such,  is  to  be  taken  neither  in  the  literal  sense, 
as  the  actual  death  and  destruction  of  their  persons,  nor 
in  the  figurative  sense  of  eternal  misery,  but  in  an  ideal 
sense,  denoting  the  death  and  destruction  of  their  sins, 
and  that  having  been  in  this  way  purified  by  the  fires  of 
Gehenna,  they  will  at  length  be  restored  to  the  favor  of 
God  and  to  the  enjoyment  of  Eternal  Life  with  the 
righteous  in  heaven.  Thus,  by  the  subtle  sophistry  of 
these  ingenious  Christian  philosophers,  these  simple,  car- 
dinal words  of  Scripture,  that  foretell  the  doom  of  the 
wicked,  came  to  have  these  three  senses  as  diverse  as 
possible  from  each  other,  viz. :  the  literal,  which  they 
discarded,  because  it  contradicted  their  dogma;  the 
metajDliorical,  implying  not  the  actual  death  and  destruc- 
tion of  sinners,  as  individuals,  but  only  the  death  and 
destruction  of  their  well-being,  while  they  would  them- 
selves live  to  sin  and  suffer  forever ;  and  the  ideal  or 
sophistical,  implying  the  death  and  destruction  of  their 
Bins  only,  which,  instead  of  harming  them,  would  fit 
them  for  the  uever-ending   enjoyment  of  heaven.     So 


46  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIET.  [Part  I. 

that  according  to  one  view,  to  destroy  man  is  to  make 
him  miserable  forever ;  and  according  to  the  other  view 
it  is  to  make  him  holy  and  hapjDy  forever, — and  this  in 
the  teeth  of  our  Lord's  jorecise  definition  of  what  it  is 
that  will  be  destroyed, — neither  his  happiness  nor  his 
sinfulness,  but  the  man  himself.  According  to  the  one 
theory,  the  familiar  passage  in  Matt.  x.  28  should  be  ren- 
dered, "  Fear  not  them  which  make  the  body  miserable, 
but  are  not  able  to  make  the  soul  miserable  ;  but  rather 
fear  Him  who  is  able  to  make  them  both  miserable  in 
hell  forever."  According  to  the  other  it  should  be  ren- 
dered, "  Fear  not  them  which  make  the  body  holy,  but 
are  not  able  to  make  the  soul  holy ;  but  rather  fear  Him 
who  is  able  to  make  them  both  holy  in  hell." 

The  adherents  of  this  third  school  of  theologizers 
have  never  been  the  majority,  though  under  such  vari- 
ous designations  as  Origenists,  Restorationists,  Univer- 
salists,  Advocates  of  the  larger  hope,  etc.,  there  have 
always  been  speculators  of  this  sort,  wherever  religious 
opinions  have  been  freely  exercised ;  and  perhaps  they 
are  more  numerous  at  the  present  time  than  ever  before. 

But  from  the  time  of  Augustine  onward,  through  the 
long,  dreary  centuries  of  the  dark  ages,  this  other 
method  of  theologizing— called  the  Augustinian  sys- 
tem of  theology,  from  its  leading  representative — has 
had  free  course  and  been  glorified,  as  the  true  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Catholic  Church,  and  is,  by  inheritance,  the 
orthodox  doctrine  of  the  Protestant  world  also. 

To  give  it  the  highest  ofiicial  sanction  of  the  Church, 
and  to  fortify  it  against  all  opposition  or  doubt,  the 
Lateran  council,  under  Leo  X.,  issued  the  following 
decree : 

"  Whereas,  some  have  dared  to  assert  concernmg  the 
reasonable  soul,  that  it  is  mortal ;  we,  with  the  appro- 


Chap.  II.J    DEATHLESS  NATURE  OF  MAN.  47 

bation  of  the  Sacred  Council,  do  condemn  and  reprobate 
all  who  assert  that  the  intellectual  soul  is  mortal,  seeing 
that  the  soul  is  not  only  truly,  and  of  itself  and  essen- 
tially, the  form  of  the  human  body,  as  it  is  expressed  in 
the  canon  of  Pope  Clement  V.,  but  likewise  immortal ; 
and  we  strictly  prohibit  all  from  dogmatizing  otherwise  ; 
and  we  decree  that  all  who  adhere  to  the  like  erroneous 
assertion  shall  he  shunned  and  punished  as  heretics.'''^ 

The  letter  of  this  edict  is  no  longer  in  force,  to  com- 
pel the  faith  of  Protestant  Christians,  and  yet  the  spirit 
that  enacted  it  is  not  yet  dead,  and  there  are  too  many, 
alas,  who  would  be  glad  to  see  its  penalty  put  in  execu- 
tion. But  we  are  thankful  to  know  that  the  age  of  big- 
otry, intolerance  and  heathen  superstition,  is  fast  passing 
away,  and  that  under  the  enlightening  influence  of  a  free 
Bible,  and  freedom  of  thought,  even  in  religious  matters, 
the  dogmas  of  an  Anti-Christian  philosophy,  which  so 
early  were  taken  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church  of  Christ, 
and  have  been  supported  by  ecclesiastical  bulls,  and  handed 
down  by  tradition,  are  undergoing  a  searching  scrutiny. 
And  this,  the  most  popular,  and  yet  the  most  delusive 
and  Anti-Christian  of  them  all,  must  soon  yield  the  place 
which  it  has  so  long  usurped  in  the  creed  of  the  Church, 
to  the  truth  as  taught  by  Christ  and  His  earlier  disciples. 
Intelligent  Christian  inquirers  are  springing  up  on  all 
sides,  in  all  our  evangelical  Churches,  with  whom  neither 
the  edict  of  the  Pope,  nor  the  traditions  cf  an  apostate 
Church,  nor  the  speculations  of  Grecian  philosophers, 
nor  the  bold  assertion  of  the  original  author  himself,  will 
suffice  to  commend  this  dogma  of  the  indefeasible  im- 
mortality of  fallen  man,  to  their  confidence,  in  face  of 
the  clear,  positive,  and  uniform  declaration  of  God's 
Word  to  sinning  man, — "  Thou  shalt  sukely  die." 


I 


48 


THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT. 


fPart  I. 


THE  THREE  THEORIES  OF  IMMORTALITY. 

The  following  Table,  taken  from  The  Life  Everlasting,  exhib' 
its,  in  brief,  the  three  schools  of  thought,  on  this  question, 
among  the  Christian  Fathers.  I,  That  of  Immortality  only  in 
Christ,  as  taught  by  Christ  Himself  and  all  the  Apostolic  Fath- 
ers. II.  The  Platonic  School,  holding  to  the  natural  immortal- 
ity of  all  souls,  which  took  its  rise  near  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  which  was  divided,  for  a  time,  into  two  parties:  1. 
Those  holding  to  the  doctrine  of  the  endless  torment  of  the 
wicked.  2.  Those  believing  in  the  final  restoration  of  the  wick- 
ed and  the  salvation  of  all  men— of  which  two  theories,  the 
former,  usually  called  the  Augustinian.  finally  prevailed,  and 
was  declared  to  be  the  only  "orthodox  doctrine"  of  the  church. 


A.D.       Immortality 

DIED.    ONLY  IN   CHRIST. 

Universal  Immortality. 

Our  Lord. 

The  Apostles. 

90 

Barnabas. 

100 

Clement  of  Rome. 

104 

Her  mas. 

107 

Ignatius. 
Anonymous- 

120  j 

Teaching  of  the 

160 

Twelve  Apostles. 
Polycarp. 

Endless  Tor- 

164 

Justin  ? 

ment  OF  the 

182 

Theophilus. 

Wicked. 

190 
200 

Athenagoras. 
Tatian. 

Universal 

208 

Irenaeus. 

Restoration. 

220 

Clement,  Alex.  ? 

Clement,  Alex.  ? 

235 

. 

Tertullian. 

238 

Hippolytus. 

Gregory,  Thau. 

253 

Origen. 

258 

Cyprian. 

,  Pierius. 

)  Theognostus. 

'  Pamphilus. 

800 

Arnobius. 

825 

Athanasius. 

Eusebius. 

373 

Lactantius. 

Titus. 

392 

Jerome. 

Basil. 

397 

Ambrose. 

Didymus. 

400 

Gregory  of  Nyssa. 

430 

AUGUSTINE. 

I 


CHAPTER  III. 

Disastrous  Influence  op  This  False  Dogma. 

The  fathers  of  the  Reformation,  under  Lather,  did  a 
noble  work  for  the  caus'3  of  Truth  and  Christianity,  in 
protesting  against  the  errors  of  the  Church  in  which 
they  had  been  reared,  in  setting  the  Word  of  God  above 
all  its  traditions,  and  the  decretals  of  its  Anti-Christian 
Head,  and  in  their  heroic  efforts  to  recall  men  to  the 
simpler  and  purer  faith  of  its  early  days.  They  searched, 
out,  and  exposed  many  of  the  grosser  errors  and  follies 
that  scholastic  sophistry,  cunning  priestcraft,  and  power- 
loving  ecclesiasticism  had  engrafted  upon  it,  during  its 
long  career  of  hypocrisy,  bigotry  and  oppression.  As 
God-fearing,  and  truth-loving  men  they  did  all  that  could 
reasonably  be  expected  of  men  in  their  position. 

When  we  consider  their  training,  their  surroundings, 
the  impediments  that  were  thrown  in  their  way,  and 
their  scant  opportunities  for  investigation,  we  are  aston- 
ished that  they  achieved  so  much,  rather  than  that  they 
ft  anything  undone.  Amid  clouds  and  darkness,  and 
ith  all  the  prejudices  and  false  notions  into  which  they 
ad  been  educated,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  they 
would  be  able,  at  one  bound,  to  cast  off  all  their  shackles ; 
to  come  into  the  jDcrfect  light  and  libei-ty  of  the  Gospel ; 
to  see  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the 
truth,  and  to  formulate  it  into  a  creed  of  such  true  pro- 
portions, as  to  require  no  further  revision  or  amendment, 
at  the  hands  of  Christian  scholars,  through  all  coming 
time. 

3  49 


60  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

Some  of  them  did  have  a  suspicion,  that  this  great 
philosophic  dogma,  of  the  natural  immortality  of  man, 
was  not  in  accordance  with  God's  truth,  and  even  Luther 
protested  against  the  edict  of  the  Pope  that  had  been 
issued  to  enforce  it.*  But  it  lay  too  deep  down  under 
the  accumulated  rubbish  of  more  than  a  thousand 
years ; — it  had  so  entwined  itself  about  their  whole 
system  of  religion,  and  was  so  firmly  embedded,  and 
fixed  in  its  very  foundation,  that  it  was  quite  impossible 
to  expose  and  eradicate  it  at  once.  They  had  too  much 
work  on  hand  demanding  their  immediate  attention,  and 
were  too  heavily  pressed  on  all  sides,  to  admit  of  their 
accomj^lishing  all  we  might  desire,  or  even  all  they 
themselves  desired.  And  so  it  was,  that  this  great  fun- 
damental error, —  indeed  the  fons  et  origo  of  most  of  the 
other  errors  of  this  corrupt  Church,  was  taken  over  into 
the  creed  of  the  Churches  of  the  Reformation,  only  to 
be  exposed  and  eradicated — as  it  surely  will  be,  by  their 
successors  in  a  freer  and  more  enlightened  age. 

There  have  been  many  Christian  scholars  since  their 
day,  who  have  questioned  the  Scriptural  authority  for 
this  dogma,  and  many  more,  who  would  not,  and  could 
not,  accept  of  the  conclusions  as  to  the  endless  misery 
of  the  unsaved,  to  which  it  leads ;  and  this  number  is 
rapidly  increasing.  And  yet,  it  still  lingers  in  the  creeds 
and  catechisms  of  most  of  our  Churches.  It  is  taught 
in  our  commentaries,  and  in  our  evangelical  pulpits,  and 
in  our  Sunday  Schools,  and  in  all  our  popular  systems  of 

*"I  permit  the  Pope  to  establish  articles  of  faith  for  his 
faithful  followers;  such  as,  the  bread  and  wine  are  transmuted 
in  the  sacrament;  the  Divine  essence  is  neither  generative  nor 
generated;  the  soul  is  the  substantial  form  of  the  human  body: 
and  himself  is  ruler  of  the  world  and  King  of  heaven  and  God 
of  earth;  and  the  soul  is  immortal,  and  all  the  numberless  prod- 
igies of  the  Romish  dunghills  of  decretals."— Luther. 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE   OF   THIS   FALSE   DOGMA.  51 

tlieology ;  it  pei-vades  all  our  sacred  and  secular  litera^ 
ture — and,  most  of  all,  that  which  is  anti-religious, — 
distorting,  as  it  always  has,  and  must,  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Christian  faith, 
bringing  reproach  upon  the  justice  of  God,  discrediting 
the  work  of  Christ  in  our  redemption,  obscuring  the 
glory  of  the  Gospel,  and  greatly  hindering  its  progress, 
and,  in  short,  operating  as  a  fruitful  source  of  skepticism 
and  infidelity,  wherever  it  is  insisted  on  as  a  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  the  Christian  religion. 

For  it  follows  as  a  necessary  corollary  of  this  doctrine, 
that  this  once  holy  and  happy  universe,  which  God  pro- 
nounced "very  good"  in  the  beginning,  will  never  be 
restored  to  its  original  perfection  ;  that  sin,  bringing 
death  and  misery  in  its  train,  having  once  gained  a  lodg- 
ment here — whether  with  or  without  Divine  permission, 
we  need  not  now  inquire — will  never  be  exterminated, 
or  expelled.  It  may,  like  a  raging  fire,  be  localized  and 
circumscribed  within  certain  limits,  but  it  will  never, 
like  that  fire  exhaust  itself  and  die  out ;  nor  will  it  ever 
be  extinguished  by  God  Himself,  but  will  rage  on  for- 
ever, not  to  devour  and  consume,  but  only  to  torment 
the  miserable  victims  upon  whom  it  is  ceaselessly  prey- 
ing ;  and,  so  long  as  Jehovah  lives  and  reigns,  holiness 
and  sin,  happiness  and  misery,  praises  and  curses,  life 
and  death  will  run  parallel  with  each  other,  throughout 
all  the  cycles  of  a  never-ending  future.  Heaven  will 
resound  with  the  songs  of  the  redeemed,  and  hell,  with 
the  curses  and  groans  of  the  damned,  through  all  the 
eternal  ages ;  and  the  time  will  never,  never  come,  when 
Infinite  love.  Divine  wisdom  and  Almighty  power  will 
have  so  successfully  triumphed  over  the  works  of  the 
devil,  as  to  have  utterly  destroyed  them,  nor  over  death 
and  hell,  as  to  have  destroyed  them;  nor  when  the  jus- 


62  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

tice  of  God  will  have  so  vindicated  itself,  by  the  suffer- 
ings of  the  unsaved — whether  they  be  many  or  few — 
as  that  they  can  be  permitted  to  expire ;  nor  when  the 
foundations  of  His  government  will  be  secure,  and  the 
loyalty  of  His  holy,  happy  children  assured,  without  this 
awful  exhibition  of  His  infinite  wrath,  rolling  up  like  the 
smoke  of  a  furnace,  forever  before  their  eyes.* 

But  when  men  stop  to  consider  what  is  involved  in 
the  idea,  or  rather  in  the  fact  of  suffering  that  is  ahso- 
lutely  endless ;  what  it  is  for  conscious  creatures  like 
themselves,  to  writhe  in  the  agonies  of  a  second  death, 
without  dying  forever  and  ever,  and  without  the  least 
possible  hope  of  relief ;  when  they  consider  what  count- 
less myriads  of  the  human  race — even  with  the  most 
favorable  construction  of  the  words  of  Christ,  concern- 
ing the  number  of  the  lost — must  already  have  sunk 
into  this  abyss  of  woe,  and  what  multitudes  are  daily 
following  them  there  ;  when  they  come  to  predicate  this 
doom,  not  of  sinners  in  the  abstract,  but  of  their  own 
acquaintances  and  friends — it  may  be  of  their  own 
children  and  bosom  companions,  who  go  out  of  life 
giving  no  evidence  of  piety,  and  perhaps,  even  rejecting 
the  salvation  offered  in  the  Gospel, — they  are  appalled 
at  the  conclusion  to  which  their  creed  and  their  losric 
lead  them.  Their  faith  cannot  endure  the  strain  put 
upon  it.     Something  must  give  way. 

Holding  to  the  doctrine  of  the  endless  conscious  ex- 
istence of  all  men,  beyond  this  life,  as  a  doctrine  of  the 
Bible — for  so  they  have  been  taught  to  believe — they 
begin,  in  their  hearts,  to  charge  God  foolishly  with  all 

*  "  Should  this  eternal  torment  of  the  unsaved  cease,  and 
this  fire  be  extinguished,  it  would  in  a  great  measure,  obscure 
the  light  of  heaven,  and  put  an  end  to  a  great  part  of  the  hap- 
piness and  glory  of  the  blessed."— Hopkins'  Works,  Vol.  II, 
pp.  457,  458. 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE    OF   THIS   FALSE   DOGMA.  53 

the  injustice  and  cruelty  their  false  creed  attributes  to 
Ilim,  or  to  doubt  the  testimony  of  His  Word,  as  to  the 
actual  danger  of  coming  short  of  salvation,  and  the 
necessity  of  striving  to  lay  hold  of  the  Eternal  Life  that 
is  set  before  them  in  the  Gospel,  or  to  deny  the  God  of 
the  Bible,  or  to  take  refuge  in  some  other  form  of  belief 
or  unbelief,  or  else — clinging  to  their  faith  in  God  and 
to  the  Scriptures  as  His  Word, — they  earnestly  set 
themselves  to  find,  and  perhaps,  think  they  do  find,  in 
these  Oracles — in  spite  of  their  most  positive  declarations 
to  the  contrary — evidence  enough  to  satisfy  them,  of  the 
ultimate  salvation  of  all  men. 

Even  those  who  cannot  relieve  their  burdened  minds, 
by  doing  such  evident  violence  to  the  letter  of  God's 
Word,  still  hope,  because  they  will  and  must,  that  possi- 
bly a  post  mortem  probation,  or  some  other  way  not  yet 
revealed,  may  be  found,  of  escape  from  the  incredible 
doom  of  endless  woe,  which  seems  to  be  threatened 
against  all  who  die  in  tiieir  sins.  They  do  not  dare  to 
deny  explicitly  a  doctrine  that  has  been  held  by  so  many 
of  the  wise  and  good,  who  have  gone  before  them, 
though  they  are  unable  to  reconcile  it  with  their  own 
sense  of  justice.  They  may  not,  perhaps,  be  willing  to 
admit,  even  to  themselves,  that  they  do  not  believe  it, 
lest  they  should  seem  to  be  sliding  away  from  the  true 
foundation ;  but  they  cannot  but  hope  that  it  may  not  be 
true.  They  accept  it,  if  at  all,  under  a  kind  of  mental 
protest.  It  is  that  dark,  mysterious  doctrine,  upon 
which  they  dare  not  trust  themselves  to  think,  lest  they 
should  have  hard  thoughts  of  God,  whom  they  wish  to 
love  and  trust,  whom  they  do  indeed  love  and  trust  as 
their  Heavenly  Father,  amid  all  the  clouds  and  darkness 
of  their  false  theodicy ;  but  it  is  only  as  they  include 
themselves,  and  all  their  dear  friends,  and  all  infants, 


54  THE    UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  I. 

and  imbeciles,  and  all  in  heathen  lands,  who  have  never 
heard  of  a  Saviour,  and  all  in  Christian  lands,  who  have 
"  never  had  a  fair  chance  "  of  salvation,  among  the  num- 
ber of  the  saved ;  and  then,  as  for  the  rest — if  there  be 
any  such — they  comfort  their  hearts,  by  saying,  and 
wisely  saying,  with  faithful  Abraham,  "  Shall  not  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?  " 

In  the  rude  and  unfeeling  ages  of  the  past,  when  the 
severest  penalties  were  inflicted  for  trivial  offences,  and 
when  the  chief  object  of  punishment  was  torment,  and 
the  executioners  of  the  law  were  called  "  tormentors  "  ; 
when  human  governments  vied  with  each  other  in  the 
severity  of  the  tortures  they  inflicted  upon  the  unhappy 
victims  of  their  displeasure,  and  even  the  death  penalty 
was  made  as  cruel  and  protracted  as  possible,  and  medi- 
cal aid  was  invoked,  to  prolong  the  lives  of  those  who 
suffered  it,  that  still  more  enduring  agonies  might  be 
inflicted  upon  them,  while  dying ;  in  those  times — not 
so  very  long  past,  but  now  happily  passed,  never  to  re- 
turn— when  Church  officers  exercised  the  function  of 
inquisitors,  under  the  pretence  of  doing  the  will  of  God, 
this  doctrine  of  endless  torment  for  the  enemies  of  God, 
a  doctrine  so  consonant  with  the  spirit  and  practice  of 
the  age,  might  more  easily  find,  and  hold  its  place  un- 
challenged in  the  creed  of  the  Church. 

But  in  these  "  last  days,"  under  the  softening  influ- 
ences of  the  Gospel,  when  so  much  is  done  to  assuage 
human  sorrow  and  pain,  and  even  animal  suffering,  and 
to  relieve  the  distress  of  even  the  most  ill-deserving; 
when  mercy  is  mingled  with  justice,  in  the  punishment 
of  the  most  hardened  of  criminals,  and  capital  punish- 
ment even,  is  made  as  humane  and  summary  as  possible, 
men  cannot  but  ask,  whether  the  majesty  of  the  Divine 
government, —  to  which  all  human  governments   must 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE    OF   THIS   FALSE   DOGMA.  55 

look,  both  for  their  authority  to  punish,  and  for  an  ex- 
ample of  the  manner  and  spirit  in  which  it  is  to  be 
administered, — can  be  vindicated  only  by  the  infliction 
of  tortures  too  horrible  to  think  of,  and  protracted 
without  end?  Is  there  no  such  thing  as  capital  punish- 
inent^ — the  punishment  of  deaths  actual  death — under 
the  government  of  the  Almighty  Ruler?  Is  it  to  be 
supposed  that  He,  who  instituted  this  penalty  of  death, 
death  without  torture,  and  commanded  it  to  be  executed 
upon  the  guilty  subjects  of  His  theocratic  government 
on  earth,  has  no  such  penalty,  in  reserve,  for  rebels 
against  the  government  of  heaven  ?  Has  He  ho  alterna- 
tive, but  to  imprison  the  helpless  victims  of  His  dis- 
pleasure, and  to  pour  out  upofi  them  the  vials  of  His 
wrath  without  limit,  and  without  end  ?  Has  He  no  way 
of  putting  an  end  to  their  miserable  existence  ?  or  does 
He  choose  to  prolong  their  forfeited  lives,  that  they  may 
never  cease  to  suffer?  It  surely  cannot  be  for  the 
benefit  of  these  victims,  who  have  no  future  to  hope  for. 
Is  it  then,  for  the  benefit  of  the  saved  ?  or  is  it  to 
gratify  the  vindictive  wrath  of  their  Creator  ?  If  not, 
what  can  be  the  object  of  the  eternal  suffering  of  these 
miserable,  helpless  creatures,  who  are  supposed  to  be 
confined  forever  beyond  the  reach  of  mercy  or  hope  ? 

And  when  we  are  told,  as  we  surely  are,  in  the  theo- 
logical systems  of  our  fathers,  and  of  those  who  follow 
them,  at  the  present  day,  that  this  is  the  doom,  not  only 
of  rejectors  of  the  Gospel,  and  irreclaimable  offenders 
against  .light  and  knowledge,  but  of  innumerable  multi- 
tudes from  heathen  lands,  who  were  born,  as  all  of  us 
were,  under  sin  and  condemnation,  and  who  have  never 
heard  of  a  Saviour — of  creatures,  who  owe  both  their 
existence,  and  the  conditions  of  their  existence,  to  the 
Sovereign  Will   of    Him   who   foresaw,   and  predeter- 


56  THE   UITSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Parti. 

mined  all  things  from  the  beginning — Christian  believers, 
if  they  have  Christian  hearts,  cannot  but  feel,  that  there 
must  be  a  flaw  somewhere  in  the  chain  of  reasoning, 
that  leads  to  such  monstrous  conclusions,  though  they 
may  not  be  able  to  detect  it. 

What  though  the  great  and  good  divines  of  a  former 
generation  could  school  their  severe  and  logical  minds  to 
accept  all  the  terrible  conclusions  involved  in  the  dogma 
of  the  deathless  nature  of  man,  which  they  had  received 
by  tradition  from  their  fathers ;  what  though  they  could, 
in  their  zeal  for  the  glory  of  God's  justice,  believe  and 
teach  to  their  docile  hearers,  that  the  perpetual  spectacle 
of  the  agonies  of  the  lost  in  hell,  would  serve  to  aug- 
ment the  joys  of  the  redeemed  in  heaven,  and  that, 
"  should  eternal  punishment  cease  and  the  fire  be  extin- 
guished, it  would  put  an  end  to  a  great  part  of  the 
happiness  and  glory  of  the  blessed."  It  is  taxing  too 
heavily  the  faith  of  the  men  of  the  present  day,  to 
insist  on  their  believing  doctrines,  however  hoary  with 
age,  or  fortified  by  human  authority,  that  are  abhorrent, 
at  once,  to  their  reason  and  their  moral  sense.  They 
will  no  longer  be  held  to  those  views  of  God  and  His 
government,  that  prevailed,  when  all  rulers  Vt^ere  tyrants, 
and  justice  was  but  another  name  for  vengeance,  and 
punishment  was  synonymous  with  torture.  They  cannot 
be  induced  to  love  or  worship  a  deity,  who  is  represented 
to  them  as  a  monster  of  cruelty — ^more  savage  and 
vengeful  than  the  bloodthirsty  gods  of  the  heathen 
world,  nor  to  accept  of  a  theodicy,  that  is  at  war  with 
the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  Gospel.  They  will  not  be 
terrified  by  threatenings  they  do  not,  and  cannot  believe 
will  ever  be  executed,  nor  persuaded  to  flee  from  a 
-danger  they  do  not  fear,  nor  betake  themselves  to  a 
refuge  of  which   they  have   ceased  to  feel   the  need. 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE    OF   THIS   FALSE   DOGMA.  57 

They  cannot  be  aroused  to  seek  for  an  immortality 
which,  they  have  been  made  to  believe,  is  already 
assured,  nor  to  make  any  efforts  to  lay  hold  of  that 
Eternal  Life,  which  they  entered  upon  when  they  were 
born. 

If  the  alternative  to  the  great  salvation  that  is  set 
before  men  in  the  Gospel  be,  through  misrepresentation, 
made  incredible,  the  truth,  which  it  ought  to  enforce, 
will  soon  lose  its  power  to  move  them.  If  the  "  death," 
which  God  threatens,  be  riot  death,  at  all,  but  something 
else,  so  incredible  that  no  thinking  man  can  believe,  nor 
ought  to  believe  will  be  visited  upon  the  impenitent, 
men  will  sin  with  greater  boldness  and  in  fancied  se- 
curity. It  was -by  changing  the  truth  of  God  into  a  lie, 
that  the  great  Arch-deceiver  accomplished  the  ruin  of 
our  first  parents,  and  today,  the  glorious  Gospel,  which 
is  "  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation  to  every  one  that 
believeth,  is  made  of  none  effect,"  through  the  same 
delusion.  Men  everywhere,  in  increasing  numbers,  are 
turning  away  their  ears  from  the  truth,  mixed,  as  it  is, 
with  human  conceits,  and  turned  into  a  fable,  under  the 
influence  of  this  great  falsehood.  They  are  forsaking 
the  altars,  at  which  their  fathers  worshiped,  and  betaking 
themselves  to  other  forms  of  belief,  or  unbelief,  that 
have,  at  least,  the  merit  of  not  being  incredible,  however 
far  they  may  be  from  "  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the 
saints." 

This  is  just  the  result  we  have  to  dej^lore,  at  the 
present  time — the  cause  of  which  ought  not  to  be  a 
mystery.  Everywhere,  throughout  Christendom,  the 
people  are  casting  off  the  restraints  of  religion,  and 
forsaking  the  Sanctuary.  Skepticism  among  all  classes, 
especially  among  the  young,  is  becoming  very  general. 
Even  among  those  who  professedly  hold  to  what  are 
3* 


58  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

called  Evangelical  doctrines,  there  is  a  skepticism,  more 
or  less  latent,  as  to  the  final  and  irreversible  doom  of 
those  who  die  in  their  sins,  a  kind  of  speculative,  esoteric, 
half-doubting  hope,  of  their  ultimate  salvation,  by  some 
plan  of  Divine  mercy,  not  yet  revealed,  that  greatly 
weakens  the  power  of  the  truth.  Earnest  Christians  are 
looking  with  anxiety  and  concern  upon  the  indifferent- 
ism  and  irreligion  of  the  present  time,  and  are  inquiring 
after  the  cause  and  the  remedy.  They  ask  :  Why  is  it, 
as  knowledge  and  the  spirit  of  inquiry  increase,  and 
philanthropic  efforts  for  the  welfare  of  society  are  mul- 
tiplied, religious  error  and  infidelity  increase?  Why  do 
not  the  masses  frequent  the  house  of  God,  and  listen  to 
the  ordinary  preaching  of  the  Word,  as  they  once  did  ? 
What  vvill  bring  them  back  to  the  sanctuary  and  to  the 
faith  of  their  fathers?  What  modification  in  the  ser- 
vices of  God's  house,  and  in  the  manner  of  presenting 
the  truth,  are  needed  to  accomplish  this  end?  They  do 
well  to  inquire.  These  are  questions  of  vital  importance. 
But  does  it  not  occur  to  any  of  them,  that  their  creed 
may  require  some  modification  ?  that  the  evils  they  so 
much  deplore  may  be  due,  quite  as  much  to  the  nature 
of  the  dogmas  that  are  preached,  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  presented  ?  quite  as  much  to  the  false 
light,  in  which  the  great  Object  of  their  worship  is  held 
up  before  them,  as  to  the  precise  forms  in  which  they 
are  invited  to  worship  Him  ? 

Not  that  "  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God  " 
needs  any  modification;  but  is  it  not  time  to  inquire 
whether  all  the  human  philosophy  that  is  preached  with 
it,  is  also  from  God,  and  a  part  of  that  Gospel? 
Whether  all  the  errors,  perversions,  false  interpretations, 
foolish  conceits,  and  traditions,  by  which  it  was  burdened 
in  its  transit  through  the  dark  ages,  were  fully  exposed, 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE    OF    THIS    FALSE    DOGMA.  59 

and  rejected  in  the  Reformation,  so  that  none  of  them 
remain,  to  weaken  its  power  or  dim  its  luster,  or  check 
its  progress  in  these  last  days  ?  In  short,  whether  there 
be  not  need  of  another  refonnation,  to  carry  forward  to 
a  higher  stage,  the  work  which  the  Reformers  of  the 
sixteenth  century  began,  and  to  do  it  more  thoroughly, 
than  they  did — not  m^ely  to  'lop  off  some  more  of  the 
branches  of  this  error,  but  to  extirpate  completely  the 
error  itself,  which  has  so  long  hidden  the  glory  of  the 
Gospel,  and  fettered  its  progress  in  the  world. 

This  apparent  falling  away,  is  not  to  be  taken  as  an 
evidence  that  the  Gospel  has  spent  its  force,  and  that 
Christianity  is  a  decaying  system,  and  must  soon  pass 
away  and  give  place  to  some  other  form  of  religion, 
better  adapted  to  meet  the  wants  of  a  higher  civiliza- 
tion ;  that  a  supernatural  religion  has  had  its  day,  and 
mast  yield  its  place  to  one  that  is  scientific  and  natural — 
if  to  any ; — that  the  doctrines  taught  in  the  Bible  are 
losing  their  hold  on  the  hearts  and  consciences  of  men ; 
that  though  answering  very  well  for  mankind  in  their 
state  of  childhood  and  ignorance,  they  are  altogether 
too  crude  and  imperfect  to  be  received  as  the  truth,  in 
this  age  of  scientific  light  and  knowledge — ^NTo  not  this  ; 
but  that  the  people  are  becoming  more  critical  in  their 
inquiry  ;  What  is  Bible  truth  ?  and  less  willing  to  be 
controlled  by  human  authorities,  and  the  traditions  of 
men  that  have  been  read  into  the  Bible.  They  want  a 
God  to  worship,  whom  they  can  love  and  trust,  as  well 
as  fear,. a  Saviour  ^o  save  them  from  a  peril  that  is  felt 
to  be  imminent,  a  religion  whose  sanctions  are  justified 
by  the  principles  it  inculcates. 

However  practicable  it  might  once  have  been,  it  is  no 
longer  possible,  to  hold  men  to  doctrines  that  contradict 
their  intelligence,  nor  to  views  of  God  and  His  govern- 


60  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  1. 

ment  that  are  repugnant  to  the  sense  of  justice  He  has 
implanted  within  them.  Christianity  is  the  only  relig- 
ion that  has  ever  had  any  tendency  to  lift  men  up  from 
Kin  and  its  degradation,  and  to  fit  them  for  the  immor- 
tality that  is  set  before  them,  through  the  Incarnation  of 
a  Divine  Saviour.  The  Gospel  of  Christ,  as  it  came 
from  the  lips  of  its  Author,  has  lost  none  of  its  virtue 
or  power.  It  is  as  really  adapted  now  to  the  wants  of 
perishing  men,  as  when  first  preached  by  Christ  and  His 
disciples.  It  is  now,  as  then,  the  only  hope  of  a  lost 
world.  It  is  still  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation,  to 
every  one  that  believeth,  and  there  is  salvation  in  no 
other  name  but  that  of  Christ,  the  Giver  of  Eternal  Life. 
But  so  long  as  men  are  assured  of  their  indefeasible 
claim  to  this  Eternal  Life,  without  Him,  they  will  have 
but  little  sense  of  their  need  of  this  Life-Giver,  and 
but  little  fear  that  God,  in  His  great  mercy,  will  fail  to 
find  some  way  to  save  them  from  the  consequences  of 
their  sins,  in  the  life  beyond,  if  not  in  this. 

But  what  is  "  the  great  salvation,"  that  is  offered  us  in 
the  Gospel?  What  is  it  that  constitutes  it  good  news^ — 
as  the  word  imports — to  dying  men  ?  It  is  this — That 
^^  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten 
Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish 
but  have  JEuerlasting  Life."  It  is  not  that  we  are  to  be 
saved  from  suffering  or  dying.  This  is  the  common  lot 
of  all  men,  believers  and  unbelievers  alike.  We  must 
all  eat  our  bread  in  sorrow,  all  the  days  of  our  life,  till 
we  go  down  into  Hades.  Christ  Himself  as  the  Son  of 
Adam  went  there— but  as  the  Son  of  God,  He  rose  vic- 
torious over  its  power,  by  the  Divine  life  that  was  in 
Him,  and  so  shall-  all  His  people,  by  the  same  Divine 
life^-that  new  life  which  He  shall  give  them. 

But  so  long  as  the  minds  of  men  are  occupied  with 


Chap.  III.]    INFLUENCE    OF   THIS   FALSE   DOGMA.  61 

the  delusive  hope  of  an  immortality,  already  assured, 
the  light  of  this  glorious  Gospel  cannot  shine  into  them 
in  all  its  fullness  and  power.  Christ  Himself,  though 
robbed  of  His  chief  glory  as  the  only  Giver  of  this 
Everlasting  Life,  may  still  receive  the  praises  and  admi- 
ration of  men,  as  the  kind,  suffering,  dying  "Lamb  of 
God."  But  it  is  only  as  men  are  made  to  see,  and  feel 
that  they  must  actually  perish,  without  Him ;  that  they 
have  no  substantial,  enduring  life  in  themselves,  and  can 
have  no  hope  of  its  perpetuity  hereafter,  that  they  will 
earnestly  seek  Him  as  their  Life-Giver  and  Saviour. 

The  real  Gospel  message  is  the  proclamation  of  this 
Life — Life  out  of  death — Eternal  Life  to  mortal — not  to 
immortal  men — through  Jesus  Christ  its  only  Source. 
The  grand  distinction  between  the  saint  and  the  sinner, 
is  not  that  the  one  is  so  much  better  than  the  other,  that 
the  saint  is  to  be  rewarded  with  eternal  bliss,  and  the 
sinner  is  to  be  punished  with  eternal  misery.  The  world 
cannot  see  any  ground  for  such  a  distinction  in  them ; 
nor  can  they  be  made  to  believe  that  there  is  any  such 
distinction  to  be  made,  in  the  life  to  come. 

But  they  can  be  made  to  see  and  feel,  whenever  their 
religious  guides  shall  so  teach  them,  that  all  men,  since 
the  fall,  are  naturally  and  inevitably  mortal,  whatever 
may  be  their  moral  character.  It  is  only  by  a  new  birth, 
and  a  resurrection  from  the  dead,  through  Christ,  that 
any  child  of  Adam  can  possess  this  imperishable  life.  It 
is  imperishable  because  it  is  the  Divine  life  imparted  to 
the  soul  of  man,  by  a  new  birth.  This  is  the  only  life 
that  is  imperishable.  Failing  of  this,  no  man  has  "the 
povver  of  an  endless  life  "  within  him. 

The  Church  of  Christ  by  encouraging  natural  men  to 
expect  an  immortal  life,  that  is  assured  only  to  the  chil- 
dren of  God,  have  obscured  the  main  distinction  between 


62  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

the  regenerate  and  the  imregenerate,  have  turned  the 
sacrificial  death  of  Christ  into  an  unmeaning  tragedy, 
and  robbed  the  Gospel  of  the  chief  element  of  its  ex- 
cellency and  power.  This,  we  believe  to  be  the  prime 
cause  of  her  want  of  success  in  urging  it  upon  the  world. 

The  doctrine  of  immortality,  not  by  nature,  but  by  a 
supernatural  birth  from  above,  is  an  offence  to  the  nat- 
ural man,  who  prides  himself  upon  the  nobility  of  his 
nature.  But  it  is  the  truth  of  God,  and  credible  as  well 
as  true,  and  affords  no  sinner  any  just  occasion  for 
reproaching  his  Maker.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Gospel, 
and  the  only  Gospel  that  was  known  to  tlie  primitive 
disciples,  or  early  Christians,  till  their  faith  was  cor- 
rupted by  the  cunning  of  the  great  Deceiver,  through 
Grecian  philosophy  that  he  might  "  strengthen  the  hands 
of  the  wicked,  that  he  should  not  turn  from  his  wicked 
way  by  promising  him  life."     (Ezek.  13  :  22.) 

When  the  Church  of  Christ  returns  to  the  faith, 
from  which  she  has  been  seduced,  and  holds  forth  again 
the  simi:)le  truth,  as  it  is  in  Jesus,  there  will  be  no  diffi- 
culty in  making  men  see  and  feel  their  perishing  condi- 
tion, and  believing  it,  as  they  now  do  not,  they  will  cry 
out,  as  under  the  preaching  of  Paul  and  Silas :  "  What 
must  we  do  to  be  saved  ?  "  The  Sanctuaries  will  again 
be  crowded  to  hear  "  the  words  of  this  life."  The  early 
missionary  spirit  will  again  revive,  and  Christians,  at 
home  and  abroad,  will  labor  with  a  zeal  and  faithfulness 
to  save  their  perishing  fellowmen,  which  can  only  be  in- 
spired and  kept  alive  by  a  hearty  belief,  that  they  are 
actually  going  down  to  death,  and  unless  they  be  rescued 
and  saved  before  they  die,  they  must  perish  utterly  and 
forever. 


Chap.  III.]     I'N'FLUENCE    OF    THIS    FALSE    DOGMA.  63 

Note.  "  The  doctrine  of  Life  in  Christ  is  the  key  to  the 
inteipretation  of  Scripture.  Read  in  this  ligjht,  the  Bible  is  a 
new  book.  The  perplexities,  the  doubts,  the  surmisings  of 
God  that  would  force  their  way,  the  dark,  j?loomy  future,  are 
all  dispersed.  This  doctrine  has  made  the  Bible  ten  thousand 
times  more  precious  to  me  than  it  was  before ;  has  made  Christ 
more  honored,  and  the  Great  Father  more  loved. 

"  I  no  longer  wonder  that  there  should  be  fierce  and  inveterate 
opposition  to  the  propagation  of  this  grand  doctrine.  It  was 
the  very  first  truth  which  Satan  sought  to  obscure  and  obliter- 
ate by  the  introduction  into  the  Christian  Church  of  a  specious 
and  false  philosophy  borrowed  from  Greece  and  Egypt,  and 
first  tnught  by  himself  to  Eve  in  Eden.  He  will  not  so  easily 
part  with  a  philosophy  which  has  enabled  him  to  do  his  work 
so  well.  Views  that  cover  God  with  the  aspect  of  injustice,  or 
alienate  men's  minds  from  Him,  or  lead  ten  thousands  to  infi- 
delity, or  enable  men  to  get  rid  altogether  of  the  idea  that  sin 
is  a  fatal  and  destructive  thing,  will  not  be  easily  given  up. 
The  doctrine  that  the  soul  is  the  true  man,  and  that  the  soul 
is  gif t(  d  with  an  inalienable  immortality,  brought  in  a  muti- 
lated shape  into  theology  from  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  has 
led  to  all  this.  It  has  led  to  Augustine's  exhibition  of  God  as 
a  being  of  revolting  cruelty,  and  to  the  future  of  much  of  His 
world  as  displaying  only  the  most  intense  and  harrowing 
misery;  it  has  Id  to  Origen's  excision  of  vengeance  from 
amoncj  the  Divine  attributes,  thereby  opening  the  way  to  un- 
bridled sin;  it  has  led  to  the  Roman  purgatory,  with  all  its- 
attendant  errors,  as  a  refuge  irom  what  was  felt  to  be  too  great 
a  punishment  to  be  inflicted  by  God  upon  ordinary  ojBfenders; 
it  has  raised  against  Scripture  and  the  God  of  the  Bible  the 
derisive  taunt  and  outcry  of  infidelity;  it  has  caused  the  hearts 
of  believers  to  mourn  over  a  conduct  on  the  part  of  God  which 
th'-y  could  not  justify.  Altogether,  no  dogma  whatever  can 
be  named  which  has  been  productive  of  one-half  the  evil  con- 
se(iuenccs  that  the  dogma  of  man's  inalienable  immoitality 
has  produced.  This  is  what  we  have  gained  by  introducing 
nito  our  theology  under  another  name  and  under  a  specious 
disguise  the  old  Manichsen  heresy  of  the  eternity  of  evil.  I 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  eternity  of  evil  as  taught 
by  the  school  of  Augustine  is  a  far  greater  slander  upon  the 
character  of  God  than  this  same  error  as  it  was  propounded  by 


64  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

the  Persian  Manes.  Manes  supposed  evil  to  be  an  eternal  and 
essentia]  part  of  the  constitution  of  the  Universe,  the  school 
of  Augustine  represents  God  as  the  perpetuator  of  evil  by  be- 
stowing immortality  upon  the  evil-doer.  We  cannot  wonder 
that  all  the  craft  of  the  Arch-deceiver  should  be  put  forth  to 
maintain  such  a  doctrine  as  this.  Nor  are  men  at  all  ready  to 
part  with  long-established  opinions.  The  triumph  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Life  in  Christ  will  produce  a  revolution  in  theology. 
The  standard  works  alike  of  the  Eeformed  and  the  Roman 
churches  are  in  a  great  measure  based  upon  the  idea  of  the 
inalienable  immortality  of  man.  The  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture takes  it  as  its  starting  pohit.  When  this  comes  to  be 
acknowledged  as  a  mere  human  conceit,  many  admired  com- 
mentaries, treatises,  sermons,  confessions  of  faith,  will  be 
Been  to  have  been  based,  in  great  measure,  upon  a  foundation 
of  sand. 

''But  the  truth  will  shine  out  the  clearer  for  all  this.  To  the 
truth  we  are  ready  to  sacrifice  a  whole  hecatomb  of  human 
writings;  and  the  truth  is  spreading  far  and  wide.  In  Great 
Britain  it  is  spreading  slowly  but  surely  against  prejudice  and 
authority.  In  the  United  States  it  is  spreading  much  more 
rapidly.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  sea-board  of  the 
Great  Republic,  men  of  acute  mind,  who  will  not  submit  to  the 
bidding  of  others  no  better  able  to  judge  than  themselves,  are 
examining  the  great  question.  I  have  little  doubt  of  the  result. 
I  look  forward,  at  no  distant  day  to  see  '  the  Christian  mind 
shake  off  the  false  theology,  founded  on  a  mutilated  Philoso- 
phy, and  wonder  that  it  could  ever  have  submitted  to  it  for  a 
year  or  a  day.'  "  Preface  to  Duration  and  Nature  of  Future 
Punishment,  Fifth  Edition.    H.  Constable. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Teachings  of  Nature  and  Reason. 

Our  argument  on  the  question  of  human  immortality 
rests  mainly,  if  not  wholly,  on  the  Word  of  God.  This 
teaches  us  all  we  need  to  know,  and,  indeed,  all  we  can 
know,  with  any  certainty,  of  the  destiny  of  man.  It 
was  given  us  for  this  express  purpose.  But  as  this  great 
error,  which  we  are  controverting,  makes  its  appeal  to 
Nature  and  Reason,  and  appears  to  have  its  main  force 
in  what  they  are  supposed  to  teach,  we  will  consider,  as 
briefly  as  we  can,  the  arguments  drawn  from  these 
sources,  before  proceeding  to  the  examination  of  the 
Scriptures. 

The  Naturalist,  looking  at  such  facts  as  Nature  pre- 
sents, declares  that  he  finds  no  evidence  in  them,  that 
any  man  will  live  again  after  death.  And  from  his 
standpoint,  he  is  able  to  bring  quite  an  array  of  reasons 
for  his  conclusion. 

The  sentimental  Philosopher,  on  the  other  hand,  rea- 
soning from  sentiment,  and  the  natural  instincts  of  man, 
concludes  that  man  will  never  die  at  all ;  that  what  seems 
to  be  death,  is  only  a  change  of  state,  one  step,  in  his 
onward  and  upward  development,  toward  perfection  of 
being. 

We  learn  from  the  Scriptures  that  there  is  something 
of  truth  in  each  of  these  two  extremes.  But  without 
these  Divine  Oracles,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing 

66 


66  THE   TJNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  T. 

just  what  this  truth  is,  nor  where  it  lies,  nor  how  these 
two  conflicting  views  are  to  be  reconciled. 

Scripture  agrees  with  Science,  in  teaching,  that  man's 
wa^i^ra^  life,  like  that  of  all  other  living  creatures,  ends 
with  death ;  it  furthermore  teaches,  that  there  can  be  no 
hope  of  a  second  life,  for  any  man,  without  a  Divine, 
supernatural  interposition,  to  raise  him  up  again ;  and 
then — going  beyond  the  reach  of  all  scientific  research — 
it  shows  us  God's  method  of  restoring  the  dead  to  life, 
and  of  bestowing  upon  mortals  the  unspeakable  gift  of 
Eternal  Life. 

It  also  agrees  with  Philosophy  in  teaching,  that  God 
did  originally,  and  does  even  now,  design  man  fov  a 
never-ending  life,  and  for  this  reason,  He  implanted  the 
instinct  of  immortality  within  him ;  but  it  is  for  an  im- 
mortality in  holiness,  and  in  harmony  with  Himself  the 
Creator,  and  not  in  sin  and  rebellion  against  Him.  It 
furthermore  declares,  that,  unless  man  can  be  recovered 
from  the  doom  of  death,  to  which  sin,  when  it  is  fin- 
ished, inevitably  leads,  and  reunited  to  God  in  holiness 
and  love,  he  can  have  no  fitness  for  this  endless  life,  nor 
any  hope  of  attaining  to  it. 

We  have  no  fault  to  find  with  Scientists  or  Philoso- 
phers as  such.  For  without  a  Divine  Revelation,  they 
have  no  means  of  arriving  at  the  ultimate  truth  on  this 
question,  which  is  only  "brought  to  light  in  the  Gospel." 
But  we  do  find  fault  with  those  so-called  Christian  Sci- 
entists and  Philosophers,  who,  having  the  Gospel,  so 
completely  ignore  its  teachings,  as  to  rest  their  conclu- 
sions, mainly  if  not  entirely,  on  the  findings  of  Science 
and  Philosophy;  and  because,  on  the  one  hand,  their 
analysis  of  matter  gives  no  evidence  of  a  future  life, 
conclude  there  is  none, — in  spite  of  the  declaration  of 
God's  Word ;  or,  on  the  other,  because  they  find  in  man 


Chap.  IV.]  NATITEE   AND   REASON.  67 

the  sentiments  and  instincts  of  a  future  life,  conclude, 
not  only  that  it  is  absolutely  endless,  but  also,  that  it  is 
the  assured  portion  of  every  man,  whatever  his  moral 
character  may  be, — notwithstanding  the  declaration  of 
God's  Word,  that  it  is  the  portion  only  of  the  saved. 

It  seems  strange,  passing  strange,  that,  when  God 
Himself  has  spoken  so  clearly,  and  emphatically  on  this 
very  subject,  concerning  which  there  is  so  much  need  of 
instruction,  men  professedly  Christian,  with  His  Word 
in  their  hands,  should  "  turn  away  from  Him  that 
speaketh  from  heaven  "  to  the  dubious  oracles  of  earth, 
for  wisdom,  and  be  so  ready  to  subordinate  His  authori- 
tative teaching,  to  human  speculation. 

We  cheerfully,  and  gladly  accept  of  all  the  lessons  of 
Nature  and  Reason,  for  just  what  they  can  teach,  but  for 
no  more.  We  cannot  allow  them  to  control  in  the  do- 
main of  spiritual  things,  into  which  they  are  unable  to 
enter.  In  their  own  province,  so  far  as  they  are  cor- 
rectly interpreted,  they  are  in  beautiful  accord  with  the 
Oracles  of  God ,  but  in  all  that  is  spiritual  and  supernat- 
ural, we  must  take  His  Word  as  our  supreme  and 
ultimate  authority ;  and  we  must  also  insist,  that  it  be  so 
taken  by  all  who,  as  professedly  Christian  men,  undertake 
to  argue  with  us,  this  question  of  human  Immortality. 

It  is  then  rather  for  the  sake  of  giving  completeness 
to  our  view,  and  because  it  will  be  expected  of  us,  and 
also,  that  we  may  show  how  imperfect  and  unreliable  are 
all  human  sources  of  knowledge  on  this  question,  than 
because  it  seems  really  important,  that  we  devote  a  few 
pages  to  what  are  supposed  to  be  the  teachings  of 
Nature  and  Reason,  before  we  proceed  with  the  Scrip- 
tural argument. 

I.  The  nature  of  the  soul.  It  is  said,  that,  if  the 
soul  be  "a  simple,   pure,  uncompounded,   unorganized 


68  THE  trirsPEAKABLB  GIFT.  [Part  I. 

entity,"  then  it  must  be  indestructible  and  necessarily 
immortal.  But  who  knows  that  such  is  the  nature  of 
the  soul  ?  It  is  a  sheer  assumption,  without  one  particle 
of  evidence  to  sustain  it.  The  argument  that  is  founded 
on  it  amounts  simply  to  this :  If  the  soul  be  inde- 
structible, it  is  indestructible.  If  it  be  immortal,  it  is 
immortal.  But  the  assumption  leads  to  a  broader  con- 
clusion. The  logical  mind  of  Plato  saw  it,  and  therefore 
he  concluded,  that  the  soul,  if  such  be  its  nature,  could 
have  had  no  beginning,  and  likewise  will  have  no  end ; 
that  man,  so  far  as  his  soul  is  concerned,  is  an  uncreated 
being ;  that  when  a  child  is  born,  an  immortal  soul  entera 
his  body,  and  when  he  dies,  it  goes  out  again,  either  to 
enter  some  other  body,  or  to  exist  in  a  ghostly  state 
forever ;  and  that  the  number  of  such  souls  is  eternally 
the  same,  neither  being  increased  by  new  births,  nor 
diminished  by  deaths.  But  Christian  men, — who  cannot 
but  admit  that  God  created  man,  and  that  he  has  a 
definite  beginning, — by  rejecting  the  former  part  of  the 
conclusion,  have  vitiated  the  latter  part ;  because  both 
parts  must  go  together.  For  it  is  evident  that  what  had 
a  beginning,  may  have  an  end ;  and  what  has  been  cre- 
ated, may  be  uncreated.  If  the  soul  of  man  is  not  of 
such  a  nature  as  to  exclude  the  idea  of  its  creation,  it 
certainly  is  not  of  such  a  nature,  as  to  save  it  from  pos- 
sible destruction.* 

*"It  must  indeed  be  confessed  that  the  argument  of  the 
immaterialist,  as  sometimes  conducted,  if  pushed  to  its  conse- 
quences, would  go  near  to  imply  the  immortaUty  of  birds, 
beasts  and  fishes,  of  insects  and  of  zoophytes!  .  .  Why  should 
that  which  is  immaterial,  be  indestructible?  None  can  tell  us; 
and  on  the  contrary,  we  are  free  to  suppose  that  there  may  be 
immaterial  orders,  enjoying  their  hour  of  existence  and  then 
returning  to  nihility."  Physical  Theory  of  Another  Life,  chap, 
XX.    Isaac  Taylor, 


Chap.  IV.]  NATURE    AND    REASON.  69 

But  granting  the  assumption,  that  the  soul  is  "  a  sim- 
ple, pure,  uncompounded,  unorganized  substance  or 
entity,"  and  that  it  has  a  beginning ;  the  question  arises  : 
When  is  that  beginning  ?  Are  souls  made  beforehand, 
and  kept  in  readiness  to  meet  human  demands  ?  or,  are 
they  made  to  order,  and  put  into  the  child's  body  at 
birth,  or  at  some  period  before  or  after  birth?  We 
press  this  question  upon  those  who  hold  that  the  soul  ia 
an  entity  separate  and  separable  from  the  body  and  in 
dependent  of  it.  It  is  not  an  idle  question ;  but  is  one 
that  is  important  for  them  to  consider.  If  they  are 
unable  to  answer  it,  let  them  tell,  at  least,  if  they  can, 
whether  it  be  a  full  grown,  mature,  responsible  soul,  at 
the  outset,  or  does  it  grow  in  strength  and  maturity, 
with  the  body?  The  former  supposition  would  be 
fatuous,  and  lead  to  the  absurd  conclusion,  that  new- 
born infants  are  equally  responsible,  for  their  moral  ex- 
ercises and  acts,  with  adults.  If  they  take  the  latter 
supposition,  then  we  would  ask  them  to  tell  us,  why  the 
soul  may  not  fall,  as  well  as  rise  and  grow  with  the 
body;  how  can  they  show,  that  the  soul  does  not  follow 
the  fortunes  of  the  body,  but  is,  as  they  would  have  us 
believe,  independent  of  it? 

Let  them  show,  how  it  is  possible  for  such  "  a  simple, 
pure,  uncompounded,  unorganized  entity "  to  carry  on 
all  the  varied  and  complex  operations  of  thought,  feeling 
and  action  within  the  body  and  independent  of  it ;  or  at 
least,  let  them  show  that  it  is  possible. 

If  they  shall  admit,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  soul  is 
an  organism^  then,  it  may  be  ^disorganized,  and  like  all 
other  organisms,  its  functional  or  organic  action  ceases, 
when  the  organism  is  broken  up.  But  if  they  still  insist 
that  the  soul  is  "  a  simple,  unorganized  entity,"  they 
must  admit,  that  a  bodily  organism  is  necessary  to  the 


70  THE    UKSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

exercise  of  its  functions.  If  the  soul  liad  no  conscious 
life  or  activity,  till  it  \^s  united  with  the  body,  what 
evidence  is  there  to  show,  that  it  can  maintain  its  indi- 
vidual life,  and  fulfil  its  functions,  after  the  bodily  organ- 
ization is  destroyed  ?  There  is  every  evidence  possible 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  to  show,  that  the  body  is  as 
necessary  to  the  soul,  as  the  soul  is  to  the  body ;  and 
that  they  are  mutually  dependent  on  each  other.  An 
injury  to  the  brain,  through  which  the  soul  is  supposed 
to  act,  affects  the  soul  likewise;  it  may  cause  insanity, 
it  may  cause  insensibility,  until  the  injury  is  repaired; 
it  may  cause  death.  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose,  that 
while  an  injury  to  the  brain  that  is  not  fatal,  injuriously 
affects  the  soul  to  the  same  extent,  an  injury  that  is  still 
greater — that  is  fatal — does  not  injuriously  affect  its 
consciousness  and  activity  at  all,  but  only  gives  it  greater 
freedom  of  action  and  feeling? 

The  fact  is,  the  whole  argument  for  the  immortality  of 
man  founded  on  the  nature  of  his  soul,  rests  upon  a 
pure  assumption,  and  will  not  bear  investigation.  The 
only  difficulty  in  meeting  it,  is  the  same  that  applies  to 
any  other  idle  fancy;  there  is  nothing  solid  to  argue 
against.  It  can  be  only  a  waste  of  words  between  us, 
and  those  who  hold  it,  to  argue  it  further,  till  they  can 
show  that  it  has  something  beside  a  mere  guess  to 
sustain  it. 

Note.  The  reader  is  referred  to  Lockers  Essay  on  the  Human 
Understanding :  in  which  arguing  against  the  assumption  of  the 
necessary  immateriality  of  the  soul,  he  says  "  that  in  respect 
to  our  notions,  it  is  not  much  more  remote  from  our  compre- 
hension to  conceive  that  God  can,  if  He  pleases,  superadd  to  our 
idea  of  matter  a  faculty  of  thinking,  than  that  He  should 
superadd  to  it  auotlier  substance,  witli  the  faculty  of  think- 
ing." .  .  "To  say  that  God  cannot  give  to  matter  a  faculty  of 
thinking,  is  to  say  God's  omnipotency  is  limited  to  a  narrow 
compass,  because  man's  understanding  is  so;  and  brings  down 
God's  infinite  power  to  the  size  of  our  capacities."  .  .  *'lf  one 


Chap.  ly.]  NATURE   AND   REASON.  71 

II.  The  capacities  and  capabilities  of  Man.  The 
argument  from  the  nature  of  the  soul,  which  we  have 
just  considered,  so  far  as  there  is  any  argumentative 
force  in  it,  would  seem  to  be  as  applicable  to  brutes  as 
to  men.  This  our  opponents  are  constrained  to  admit ; 
but  they  tell  us,  there  is  this  distinction  to  be  observed ; 
that,  while  the  brute  seems  to  reach  the  limit  of  his 
capacity,  man  is  cut  short  in  the  midst  of  his  career; 
that  he  is  capable  of  infinite  improvement  and  progress, 
and,  that  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  an  opportunity 
will  be  given  him  for  further  development  and  progress, 
in  another  life.  Granting  all  this,  we  are  not  to  assume, 
as  too  many  do,  that  such  a  future  life,  would,  of  neces- 
sity, be  an  endless  life.  Eternal  existence  is  a  mystery, 
which  no  finite  mind  can  fathom.  What  changes  may 
come ;  what  worlds  and  systems  of  worlds,  teeming  with 
life,  may  yet  be  created,  and  pass  away,  to  give  place  to 
others ;  what  geons,  and  cycles  of  aeons  may  follow  each 
other,  in  their  perpetual  round,  throughout  the  infinite 
future,  who  can  know,  but  the  infinite  Creator  Himself? 
Reason  cannot  assure  us,  that  there  is  no  possible  limit 
in  the  endless  future  to  human  development  and  prog- 
ress ;  much  less,  can  it  assure  us,  that  this  development 
and  progress  would  be  forever  maintained,  in  the  case  of 
every  one,  who  might  be  started  on  such  a  career.  We 
are  not  to  assume,  that  everything  that  is  created  will 
surely  reach  the  utmost  limit  of  its  capacity.  Indeed, 
we  know  it  is  not  so.     The  brutes  that  are  supposed  to 

allows  brutes  to  have  sensation,  it  will  follow  either  that  God 
can  and  doth  j^ive  to  some  parcels  of  matter  a  power  of  per- 
ception and  thinking;  or  that  all  animals  have  immaterial,  and 
consequently,  according  to  your  lordship  (the  Bishop  of  Wor- 
cester), immortal  souls  as  well  as  men ;  and  to  say  that  fleas  and 
mites,  etc.,  have  immortal  souls  as  well  as  men,  will  possibly 
be  looked  on  as  going  a  great  way  to  serve  an  hypothesis." 
Book  IV.  chap.  3. 


72  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

be  limited  in  their  capacities,  are  often  cut  short  in  the 
midst  of  their  career,  before  they  have  reached  that 
limit.  Trees  are  often  blighted  and  destroyed,  before 
they  are  half  grown.  Flowers  are  nipped  in  the  bud. 
The  promise  of  fruitage  is  not  always  realized.  And 
who  shall  assure  us,  that  man  shall  escape  all  the  dangers 
that  threaten  his  opening  life,  and  reach  the  fartliest 
possible  goal  or  rather  go  on  forever  without  reaching 
any  goal  ? 

But  it  is  not  true  that  every  one  continues  in  a  course 
of  development  and  progress,  to  the  end  even  of  his 
present  life.  There  are  multitudes  who,  apparently, 
reach  the  summit  of  their  powers,  both  physical  and  in- 
tellectual, even  before  they  come  to  the  end  of  their 
course,  and  then  go  down,  as  they  came  up,  into  feeble- 
ness and  decay  and  death.  There  are  many  who  have 
no  higher  aim  in  life,  than  the  beasts  that  perish,  whose 
only  inquiry  is,  "  What  shall  we  eat,  and  what  shall  we 
drink,  and  wliere withal  shall  we  be  clothed?"  And 
witli  these  wants  gratified,  they  become  as  stupid  and 
indifferent  to  all  higher  wants,  as  the  brutes  themselves. 
Yea,  there  are  many,  whose  development  is  actually 
downward,  toward  that  which  is  low  and  groveling; 
whose  thoughts,  whose  aims,  whose  desires  and  pleasures 
are  all  carnal  and  beastly ;  and  who  go  down  from  one 
degree  of  sottish  sinful  life  to  another,  till  they  sink  far 
below  the  level,  even  of  decent  brutes,  and  die  of  very 
rottenness.  Their  laraj^s  go  out  in  darkness.  What 
reason  have  we  to  suppose,  that  they  are  lighted  up 
again  to  shine  forever  ?  What  are  they  fit  for,  but  to  be 
burned  ?  Indeed,  observation,  to  say  nothing  of  Scrip- 
ture, teaches  us  that  the  number  who  lay  any  solid  foun- 
dation for  permanent  progress  hereafter,  is  comparatively 
few. 


Chap,  ly.]       NATURE  AND  REASON.  73 

It  is  a  law  of  God's  providence,  which  even  Nature, 
as  well  as  Revelation  teaches,  that  "  to  every  one  that 
hath,  shall  be  given  and  he  shall  have  abundance ;  but, 
from  him  that  hath  not, — that  is,  improves  not  what  is 
given  him, — shall  be  taken  away  even  that  he  hath." 
Faculties  that  are  misimproved,  or  not  improved  at  all, 
cannot  be  preserved ;  they  fall  into  imbecility  and  decay. 
Not  merely  God's  Word,  but  Reason  and  Nature  urge 
us,  with  ten  thousand  voices  to  the  wise  improvement  of 
what  we  have,  if  we  would  gain  more,  or  even  keep 
what  we  have.  This  is  as  true  of  man's  intellectual  and 
moral,  as  of  his  physical  nature.  The  mind  that  is  un- 
cultivated becomes  stupid  and  driveling ;  also,  the  heart 
dies  in  its  selfish  confinement,  if  not  drawn  out  toward 
some  object  that  is  worthy  of  its  love.  We  are  not  con- 
stituted for  the  exercise  of  evil  passions,  but  only  for 
the  exercise  of  those  that  are  pure  and  lovely.  We  are 
out  of  harmony  with  the  world  about  us,  and  with  our 
own  selves,  when  we  fall  under  the  power  of  evil  pas- 
sions and  desires,  or  when  those  that  are  normally  good 
are  abused  by  excessive  indulgence.  We  are  like  a 
machine  that  is  out  of  order ;  the  tendency  is  to  entire 
dissolution  and  ruin.  Evil  passions  within  the  soul,  like 
disease  in  the  body,  tend  to  corrode,  corrupt  and  destroy. 
We  are  taught  by  observation,  as  well  as  by  Revelation, 
that  "  Evil  shall  slay  the  wicked,"  but  "  the  righteous 
shall  hold  on  his  way,  and  he  that  hath  clean  hands  shall 
be  stronger  and  stronger."  It  is  only  as  one  rises 
toward  that  which  is  good  and  true  and  perfect,  that  he 
acts  in  harmony  with  his  own  nature,  or  can  have  any 
assurance  that  his  progress  will  be  stable  and  permanent. 

III.      Human  Instincts  and  Aspirations.      We  are 
told  that  men  love  life  and  cling  to  it,  and  that  they 
4 


74  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

naturally  shrink  back  from  death.  All  this  is  very  true. 
But  it  is  not  true  of  man  only.  All  animals  have  an 
instinct  of  life.  This  is  needful  to  its  preservation. 
This  instinct  gives  no  more  assurance  of  its  perpetuity 
in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  But  it  is  urged,  that 
it  is  something  more  than  a  mere  instinct  in  man ;  it  is 
a  sentiment  that  reaches  forward  into  the  future,  and  is 
never  able  to  find  its  full  satisfaction  in  any  present  at- 
tainment, nor  to  rest  content  in  any  present  possession. 
It  is  true,  man  was  not  made  to  be  satisfied  with  the 
good  that  comes  from  the  possession  of  material  things, 
nor  with  the  gratification  of  his  physical  wants.  He 
was  intended  for  higher  things,  and  made  capable  of 
them.  But  what  if  he  will  not  seek  them  ?  What  if 
he  knows  not  where  to  find  this  higher  good ;  or  if  he 
knows,  what  if  he  has  no  desire  to  seek  it  ?  What  if  he 
closes  his  ears  to  the  voice  of  true  wisdom,  and  persists 
in  seeking  his  highest  gratification  in  those  things  which 
can  only  increase  his  thirst,  but  never  satisfy  it?  Is 
God  beholden  to  give  him  ultimate  and  perpetual  happi- 
ness in  whatever  way  he  shall  choose  to  seek  it,  or 
whether  he  shall  use  such  light  as  he  may  have  in  seek- 
ing it.* 

*  "  It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  intense  longings  we  have  for 
immortality,  prove  that  man  is  immortal.  That  there  are  such 
longings  I  do  not  dispute ;  nor  do  I  dispute  that  they  come 
from  God's  Spirit.  But  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  to  long  for  a 
thing  proves  the  possession  of  it.  The  very  fact  of  longing  for 
a  thing  implies  tliat  we  have  it  not.  Still  this  longing  docs 
prove  that  we  are  capable  of  immortality  and  may  obtain  it  if 
we  set  to  work  in  the  right  manner.  It  seems  to  me  that  God 
very  graciously  puts  into  our  breasts  this  unceasing  longing  for 
immortality  to  make  us  reflecting  men ;  to  induce  us  to  inquire 
about  it,  from  the  only  Book  that  can  teach  us  right  concerning 
it;  to  induce  us  to  seek  it,  and  when  we  get  it  to  hold  it  fast.'* 
Immortality  in  Christ,    Kev.  H.  S.  Wakleigh. 


Chap.  IV.]       NATURE  AND  REASON.  75 

Indeed,  it  might  be  presumed,  that  the  Creator  would 
make  known  to  man  the  way  of  attaining  to  the  true 
end  of  his  being,  and  supply  him  with  the  means  neces- 
sary thereto.  We  might  further  suppose  that,  having 
wandered  from  this  way,  or  having  lost  it  through  folly 
or  sin.  He  would,  in  His  great  mercy,  show  him  the  way 
of  return,  and  "  devise  means  that  His  banished  be  not 
expelled  from  Him."  This  is  just  what  He  has  done  in 
the  Gospel.  But  the  Gospel  is  not  a  scheme  of  compul- 
sion. It  is  good  news  to  the  lost  and  perishing.  It  is  a 
message  of  invitation,  of  exhortation,  of  entreaty,  yea 
of  command ;  but  it  is  addressed  to  voluntary  agents. 
What  if  man  will  not  listen  to  this  message  of  mercy  ? 
What  if  he  has  no  relish  for  the  kind  of  good  it  offers 
him  ?  What  if  he  prefers  those  gratifications  that  ara 
sensual  and  transitory?  How  shall  his  higher  nature  be 
satisfied  or  saved  from  perishing  ? 

Those  to  whom  the  Gospel  has  never  been  given 
might,  perhaps,  be  excused  for  fancying  in  their  blind- 
ness, that  they  would  reach  the  goal  of  their  hopes  in 
whatever  direction  they  might  seek  it,  or  whether  they 
should  seek  it  or  not ;  but  how  can  those  who  have  this 
Gospel  so  misread  it,  as  to  suppose  that  all  the  good,  it 
promises  to  the  obedient,  the  diligent,  the  faithful,  will 
be  given  unconditionally  to  those  who  are  not  obedient, 
or  diligent  or  faithful?  and  that  the  highest  of  all 
boons,  the  gift  of  an  endless  life,  will  be  bestowed  upon 
all  men  indiscriminately,  whether  they  are  fitted  to 
enjoy  it  or  not?  And  yet  Christian  men,  and  even  min- 
isters, so  called,  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  do  so  reason,  in 
their  efforts  to  prove  the  immortality  of  man  on  the 
ground  of  his  natural  instincts.  Rev.  Joseph  Cook  says 
in  his  positive  way,  "Man  is  an  organized  lie,"  if  this 
greatest  of  all  gifts  is  not  bestowed  upon  him.    If  he 


76  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

means  by  this,  that  God's  truth  could  not  be  justified, 
if  He  had  not  designed  man  for  immortality,  and  made 
it  possible  for  man  to  attain  to  it,  it  is  just  what  we  all 
believe  and  teach,  and  what  God's  Word  declares.  It  is 
too  evident  to  require  any  such  oracular  assertion.  But 
if  he  means,  what  his  whole  argument  implies,  and  what 
he  evidently  intends  to  be  understood  as  teaching: — 
That  God  is  equally  beholden  to  the  good  and  bad  alike, 
to  give  them  what  they  most  desire,  it  is  the  rankest  sort 
of  Universalism. 

But  more  than  this — what  if  man  shall  defy  the  wrath 
of  the  Almighty  by  rebelling  against  Him  ?  What  if  he 
shall  despise  His  laws,  and  trample  His  ordinances 
under  foot,  and  scorn  His  overtures  of  mercy  ?  Is  there 
no  such  thing  as  destruction  under  the  government  of 
heaven  ?  Has  God  made  the  life  of  man  so  sacred,  that 
He  cannot  take  it  away  Himself  ?  Is  there  no  death 
penalty  attached  to  His  laws  ?  Is  it  reserved  for  human 
governments  alone  to  take  the  life  of  incorrigible  of- 
fenders ;  and  must  the  Almighty  Ruler  content  Himself 
with  imprisoning  and  tormenting  His  enemies  forever 
and  ever,  because  He  gave  them,  in  the  outset,  a  life 
which  he  could  not  take  away  ?  Neither  Reason  nor 
Nature  teaches  any  such  doctrine ;  and  what  is  more, 
Revelation  flatly  contradicts  it. 

IV.  The  Analogy  of  N'ature.  The  natural  world  is 
thought  to  give  many  unmistakable  hints  of  a  future 
life  for  man.  The  revival  of  vegetation  in  the  Spring, 
after  the  torpor  of  winter ;  the  shooting  up  of  the  fresh 
germ  from  the  seed,  that  has  been  buried  in  the  ground ; 
the  transformation  of  the  crawling  grub  into  the  winged 
butterfly,  as  it  bursts  from  its  winding  sheet  in  the 
chrysalis ;  the  awakening  from  sleep  after  the  rest  of  the 


Chap.  ly.]  NATURE   AND   REASON.  77 

night ;  all  these,  and  other  processes  of  nature  are  taken 
as  symbols  of  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  to  an  im- 
mortal life.  Let  us  take  them  for  all  they  teach ;  and 
when  enlightened  by  Revelation,  we  shall  find  in  them 
many  beautiful  and  important  lessons.  But  there  is 
nothing  supernatural  in  any  of  these  changes.  They  are 
all  natural  processes  of  life  in  its  different  stages.  There 
is  no  actual  death  in  any  of  them.  The  tree  or  the 
plant  that  actually  dies,  does  not  revive  in  the  Spring. 
Seed  that  is  actually  dead  will  not  sprout  up  and  grow. 
The  grub,  when  it  passes  into  the  chrysalis  state  does 
not  die.  It  only  becomes  dormant.  If  it  were  to  die, 
the  pupa  would  not  live  again.*  Sleep,  though  it  be 
called  the  Sister  of  Death,  is  only  such  in  appearance. 
If  it  were  real  death  there  would  be  no  awaking,  but 
only  corruption  and  dissolution.  Hence  the  inquiry  of 
Job,  "If  a  man  die  shall  he  line  again f''  is  not  an- 
swered by  any  of  these  processes.  "Man  dieth  and 
wasteth  away,  yea,  man  giveth  up  the  ghost  and  where 
is  he  ? "  Nature  does  not  answer  this  question  by  any 
of  her  analogies.     It  is  answered  only  by  Divine  Reve- 

*"  So  striking  is  the  analogy  between  these  metamorphoses 
and  reanimation  of  man,  that  many  able  writers  on  Natural 
theology  have  considered  them  as  direct  proof  of  his  future 
resurrection.  But  unfortunately  there  is  one  defect  in  the 
analogy,  that  seems  to  have  been  overlooked.  When  man  is 
laid  in  the  grave,  we  know  that  no  vestige  of  life  remains.  We 
may  inflict  whatever  injury  we  please  upon  the  dead  body,  but 
it  will  exhibit  no  signs  of  sensibility.  But  not  so  with  the 
chrysalis.  In  its  most  torpid  state,  you  can  always  find  marks 
of  vitality,  or  rather,  if  you  cannot  discover  signs  of  life,  it  will 
never  come  forth  as  a  perfect  insect  The  conclusion,  there- 
fore, is,  that  the  curious  facts  respecting  insect  metamorphosis, 
although  a  beautiful  emblem  of  man's  resurrection,  are  but  a 
poor  argument  in  direct  proof  of  the  doctrine."  The  Besurre^ 
lion  of  Spring  by  Pkes.  Edwakd  Hitchcock. 


78  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

lation.  The  Kesurrection  of  the  dead  is  not  a  natural 
process.  It  is  altogether  abnormal  and  miraculous. 
Those  who  undertake  to  argue  the  natural  immortality 
of  man  from  these  natural  processes  of  life  in  its  different 
stages,  confuse  their  minds  by  misinterpreting  them,  and 
instituting  false  analogies. 

Paul's  reference  to  the  sowing  of  seed  and  the  spring- 
ing up  of  new  plants,  when  arguing  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  in  1  Corinthians  15th,  is  not  to  substantiate 
the  fact  of  a  resurrection  ;  for  he  expressly  declares  it  to 
be  a  supernatural  event.  It  is  to  illustrate  the  greatness 
of  the  change  and  the  power  by  which  it  is  effected. 
The  plant  that  furnishes  the  seed,  is  not  raised,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  man  that  is  buried.  Mankind,  as  well  as 
animals  and  plants  are  propagated  in  this  way ;  but  the 
identical  animals  and  plants  are  not  reproduced  ;  nor  if 
they  were  dead  could  they  furnish  even  the  seed  for  the 
propagation  of  other  animals  and  plants.  The  question 
is  not;  Shall  the  race  of  mankind,  or  shall  the  same 
genus  or  species  of  plants  be  continued  in  their  suc- 
cessors ;  but  shall  the  individuals  themselves  live  again 
after  they  are  dead  ?  and  shall  they  live  forever  ? 

But  our  inquiry,  it  should  be  remembered,  is  not  sim- 
ply concerning  another  life,  but  concerning  the  endless- 
ness  of  that  life.  Here  the  analogy  fails  altogether ;  for 
the  life  that  is  reproduced  in  these  processes,  is  no  more 
permanent  than  the  original  life.  We  are  not  to  pre- 
sume that  all  future  life  is  necessarily  interminable. 
The  question  then  recurs,  "  Is  man  destined  to  an  endless 
existence,  or  an  endless  series  of  existences  beyond  this 
life  ?  and  is  this  true  of  emry  man  ?  " 

On  the  contrary,  so  far  as  these  analogies  show  any- 
thing on  this  subject,  they  show  the  very  doctrine  for 
which  we  are  contending, — the  doctrine  of  a  conditional 
immortality.     It  is  not  every  tree   that  revives  in  the 


Chap.  IV.]  NATURE   AND   REASON.  79 

Spring,  but  only  such  as  have  a  living  root.  It  is  not 
every  seed  that  germinates ;  but  only  such  as  have  a 
vital  principle  in  them.  So  also  we  contend,  it  is  not 
every  man  that  rises  to  an  immortal  life,  but  only  those 
who  have  the  true  life  in  them. 

Let  us  consider  well  the  illustration  so  often  employed, 
of  the  change  of  the  grub  into  the  butterfly.  It  is  not 
every  pupa  or  grub  that  has  gone  into  the  chrysalis  that 
rises  into  the  winged  butterfly,  when  tlie  time  for  this 
change  comes  ;  but  only  such  as  are  fitted  for  it.  Natu- 
ralists tell  us,  that  grubs,  caterpillars  and  larvae,  and 
lepidoptera  generally,  are  quite  liable  to  fail  of  develop- 
ment into  the  second  stage,  through  injuries  received  in 
this  first  stage  of  life.  Every  one  of  these  crawling 
grubs  is  said  to  carry  within  its  first  body  an  embryo 
butterfly,  or  psyche^  as  it  is  called  in  Greek — (the  very 
term  by  which  the  human  soul  is  designated),  upon 
which  little  ichneumon  flies  often  prey,  without  doing 
any  apparent  injury  to  the  grub  in  its  first  stage.  It 
fulfils  its  natural  larva  life,  like  all  other  grubs  of  its 
kind,  wraps  itself  in  its  winding  sheet,  and  goes  into  the 
chrysalis  state,  in  the  hope  as  it  were,  of  rising,  in  due 
time  as  a  butterfly.  But  this  hope  is  never  realized.  It 
goes  to  corruption,  and  utterly  perishes  ;  for  the  butter- 
fly OY  psyche  within,  was  destroyed  while  in  its  embryo, 
in  the  first  stage.  This  winged  or  lepidopterous  state  is 
reserved  for  those,  and  those  only  that  carry  with  them 
to  the  end,  this  Qmbryo  psyche  uninjured  and  fit  for  its 
resurrection  life. 

The  parallel  seems  perfect.  If  it  does  not  foretoken 
and  teach  the  doctrine  of  conditional  immortality,  or 
the  immortality  only  of  the  rigliteous — that  is,  of  those 
who  are  fitted  for  it,  as  we  maintain,  then  it  is  impossi- 
ble for  Nature  to  teach  any  Scriptural  doctrine  by 
analogy. 


CHAPTER  y. 

The  Natural  and  Rational  Argument. 

(Continued.) 

"It  is  very  becoming  that  men's  zeal  for  the  truth  should  go 
as  far  as  their  proofs,  but  not  go  for  the  proofs  themselves. 
He  that  received  opinions  with  anything  but  fair  arguments, 
may,  I  own,  be  justly  suspected  not  to  mean  well,  nor  be  led 
by  the  love  of  truth;  but  the  same  may  be  said  of  him,  too, 
who  so  defends  them.  An  error  is  not  the  better  for  being 
common,  nor  truth  the  worse  for  having  lain  neglected ;  and  if 
it  were  put  to  the  vote  anywhere  in  the  world,  I  doubt,  as 
things  are  managed,  whether  truth  would  have  the  majority, 
at  least  whilst  the  authority  of  men,  and  not  the  examination 
of  things  must  be  its  measure."  Essay  concerning  the  Human 
Understanding.    John  Locke. 

V.  The  doctrine  of  the  Natural  Immortality  of  Man 
is  supposed  to  find  support  in  the  general  belief  of  Man- 
kind. The  advocates  of  this  doctrine  are  accustomed  to 
rely  much  on  this  argument,  in  discussing  tliis  question. 
They  have  so  commonly,  and  so  confidently  assumed 
it  to  be  a  fact,  that  mankind  have  generally  believed 
in  the  personal  immortality  of  the  individual,  that  most 
persons  have  supposed  it  must  be  so.  We  would  cheer- 
fully concede  it  to  them,  and  whatever  advantage  they 
might  draw  from  it — if  any — in  this  argument,  if  it 
were  true.  Indeed,  in  some  of  our  earlier  writings, 
trusting  too  much  to  the  assertions  of  others,  we  did 
concede  this ;  but  a  more  careful  study  of  the  various 
religious  notions  of  the  world  at  large,  has  convinced  us 
that  it  is  a  mistake.  This  has  not  been  the  general 
belief  of  the  heathen  world.  But  on  the  contrary,  so 
80 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL   AND    RATIONAL  ARGUMENT.  81 

far  as  they  have  had  any  thought  or  belief  on  this  sub- 
ject, it  has  been  to  a  large  extent  just  the  opposite  of 
this.  If  there  be  any  advantage  in  this  argument,  in 
citing  the  vague  notions  of  mankind  unenlightened  by 
revelation,  it  would  certainly  inure  to  our  side  of  the 
question. 

It  is  true,  that  dim  and  fluctuating  ideas  of  some  sort 
of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments  are  quite 
common  to  all  men,  who  think  at  all  on  this  subject. 
They  are  suggested  by  the  unequal  distribution  of  good 
and  evil  in  this  life  ;  by  the  moral  sense  with  which  their 
Creator  has  endowed  them,  and  perhaps  also,  by  the 
tradition  of  a  divine  revelation  to  the  fathers  of  our  race 
after  the  fall,  and  which,  though  vaguely  given  at  first, 
and  sadly  obscured  and  perverted  by  superstition,  has 
never  been  entirely  lost  to  the  world. 

But  the  idea  of  a  future  state,  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
wards and  punishments  is  quite  different  from  that  of  an 
endless  existence  hereafter.  The  idea  of  a  second  life 
does  not  exclude  that  of  a  second  death,  and  final  extinc- 
tion of  being,  even  for  those  who  are  rewarded  hereafter, 
much  less  for  those  who  are  punished.  Those  who  have 
argued  this  question,  have  not  been  careful  to  distinguish 
between  the  sentiment  of  a  future,  which  is  indefinite^ 
and  one  which  is  absolutely  infinite.  It  is  very  common 
to  confuse  these  two  ideas,  though  they  are,  in  fact, 
radically  distinct.  The  Word  of  God  evidently  points 
to  a  future,  even  for  the  wicked ;  but  it  is  a  future  that 
is  terminated  by  a  death,  from  which  there  is  no  recall. 
And  yet  men  leap,  at  once,  to  the  conclusion  that,  if 
there  be  any  future  whatever  for  the  wicked,  it  must  be 
an  eternal  future.  So  they  interpret  the  Scriptures  as 
teaching  their  endless  conscious  existence  in  suffering  in 
a  future  state.  In  the  same  way  they  interpret,  or 
4* 


82  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

rather  misinterpret,  the  notions  of  the  heathen  in  regard 
to  the  future. 

These  two  ideas,  or  assumptions  underlie  the  whole 
argument  of  Mr.  Alger's  plethoric  and  Anti-Christian 
volume,  on  the  Doctrine  of  a  Future  Life; — that  to  be- 
lieve in  any  future  life  is  to  believe  in  one  that  is  endless, 
and  that  if  it  is  the  lot  of  any  portion  of  the  race,  it  is 
of  course  the  lot  of  all.  Hence  he  almost,  if  not  entirely 
ignores  the  doctrine  of  a  limited  life,  or  a  conditional 
immortality  w^hich  has  always  been  held,  not  only  by 
those  who  interpret  the  Scriptures  literally,  but  also  by 
multitudes  on  multitudes  throughout  the  pagan  world. 

The  ancient  Hebrews  had  no  idea  of  the  natural  im- 
mortality of  any  one ;  nor  any  hope  of  living  again, 
excepting  through  the  Almighty  power  of  God  in  raising 
the  dead ;  and  as  for  the  wicked,  their  lot  was  death  and 
utter  destruction. 

The  ancient  Egyptians,  who  were  more  nearly  in 
accord  with  the  Hebrews  in  their  religious  notions  than 
other  races  from  whom  they  were  more  widely  separated, 
seem  to  have  believed  in  the  resurrection  of  the  bodies 
of  the  dead,  and  also  in  the  final  destruction  of  the 
wicked — their  actual  extinction  of  beincj — after  havinof 
been  sufficiently  punished. 

So  far  as  there  is  any  consistency  in  the  old  Grecian 
mythology,  it  gives  us  no  warrant  for  thinking  that  the 
ancient  Greeks  believed,  either  in  the  endless  enjoyment 
of  their  fabulous  Elysium,  or  in  the  endless  torment  of 
Tartaros;  nor  indeed,  have  we  any  evidence  that  the 
masses  had  any  sincere  belief  in  any  existence  whatever 
beyond  this  life.  One  of  their  own  poets,  in  lamenting 
the  death  of  a  friend  says : 

"  The  meanest  herb  we  trample  in  the  field, 
Or  in  the  garden  nurture ;  when  its  leaf 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL    AND    RATIONAL    ARGUMENT.  83 

In  Autumn  dies,  forebodes  another  Spring, 
And  from  brief  slumber  wakes  to  life  again. 
Man  wakes  no  more  !    Man,  peerless,  valiant,  ti  ise, 
Once  chilled  by  death,  sleeps  hopeless  in  the  dust, 
A  long,  unbroken,  never-ending  sleep.^' 

{Moschus  Epit.  Bion.) 

Socrates  is  represented  by  Plato  as  complaining,  that 
"  men  in  general  are  highly  incredulous  as  to  the  soul's 
future  existence,"  and  of  the  impossibility  of  convincing 
them  to  the  contrary.  Indeed,  he  was  put  to  death  for 
his  peculiar  religious  and  philosophical  heresies. 

In  the  poems  of  our  Teutonic  ancestors,  the  pleasures 
of  the  blessed  in  the  halls  of  Odin,  are  represented  as 
continuing  long,  but  as  finally  coming  to  an  end : 

"  When  Lok  shall  burst  his  seven-fold  chain, 
And  Night  resume  her  ancient  reign." 

The  highest  goal  to  which  the  pious  Hindu  aspires,  is 
absorption  into  the  universal  spirit,  or  in  other  words, 
the  complete  loss  of  all  individual  existence;  and  the 
chief  ultimate  good  for  which  the  many  millions  of 
Buddhists  seek,  is  Nirvana  or  utter  extinction  of  con- 
scious, personal  being. 

In  fact  the  majority  of  our  race  in  pagan  lands  have 
always  been  too  degraded  and  brutish  to  seek  or  desire 
anything  beyond  the  satisfaction  of  their  present  animal 
wants.  It  is  only  upon  the  more  immediate  future,  that 
the  few,  the  very  few  who  have  speculated  on  a  life  be- 
yond, have  fixed  their  thoughts.  Nor  have  we  any  good 
reason  to  think,  that  their  poets  and  philosophers  who 
have  given  free  reins  to  their  imagination,  for  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  people,  or  the  statesmen,  who  have  taxed 
their  ingenuity  to  devise  means  to  support  their  author- 
ity, by  working  upon  the  fears  of  their  subjects,  have 
sincerely  believed  what  they  taught  to  others.     Varro 


84  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

Bays :  "  There  are  many  truths  which  it  is  not  expedient 
that  the  vulgar  should  know,  and  many  falsehoods  which 
it  is  expedient  that  the  people  should  receive  as  truths." 
Gibbon,  in  his  Decline  and  Fall^  says :  "  With  the  peo- 
ple they  (these  teachings  in  regard  to  the  future)  were 
equally  true,  with  the  philosopher,  equally  false,  and 
with  the  statesmen,  equally  necessary." 

Archbishop  Whately,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Future 
State^  shows  conclusively  that  a  belief  in  any  life  here- 
after, so  far  from^  being  general  among  the  ancient 
heathen  nations,  was  not  the  serious  belief  of  even  the 
poets  and  philosophers,  who  put  forth  their  speculations 
and  fancies  in  regard  to  it.  It  was  thought  necessary, 
for  prudential  reasons,  to  impose  them  so  far  as  possible, 
upon  the  masses,  but  among  themselves,  they  laughed  at 
the  credulity  of  those  who  believed  in  the  fables  they 
taught  them.     He  further  says : 

"  In  reality  the  doctrine  never  was  either  generally 
admitted  among  the  ancient  philosophers,  nor  satisfac- 
torily proved  by  any  of  them,  even  in  the  opinion  of 
those  who  argued  in  favor  of  it.  Let  it  be  remembered, 
then,  when  the  arguments  of  the  heathen  sages  are  tri- 
umphantly brought  forward  in  proof  of  the  soul's 
immortality,  that  when  they  countenanced  the  doctrine 
of  future  retribution,  they  tauo^ht  with  a  view  to  politi- 
cal expediency,  what  they  did  not  themselves  believe; 
and  that  when  they  spoke  their  real  sentiments  on- the 
subject,  the  eternity  of  existence,  which  they  expected, 
as  it  implied  the  destruction  of  all  distinct  personality, 
amounted  practically  to  nothing." 

It  is  doubtful  whether  even  Plato,  who  went  more 
deeply  into  this  question  than  any  of  them,  and  whose 
philosophy  has  been  so  thoroughly  incorporated  into  the 
Christian  system,  understood  the  ceons  or  so-called 
"  eternities "  of  which  he  spoke,  to  extend  beyond  what 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL   AND    RATIONAL    ARGUMENT.  85 

is  termed  "  the  Platonic  year  " — a  period  of  six  thousand 
suns. 

In  fact,  it  is  principally,  if  not  only,  under  the  Chris- 
tian system  modified,  as  it  has  been  by  the  philosophy 
of  Plato,  that  this  doctrine  of  the  actual,  personal  im- 
mortality of  all  men — an  immortality  of  blessedness  for 
the  righteous  and  an  immortality  of  sin  and  suffering 
for  the  wicked  has  found  general  acceptance.* 

VI.  It  is  thought  by  many  that  this  cannot  he  an 
err  or  ^  else  the  goodness  of  God  would  not  have  suffered 
it  to  take  root  and  prevail  as  it  has^  especially  in  Chris- 
tian lands.  How  is  it  possible,  it  is  asked,  that  God 
should  have  permitted  learned  and  good  men  to  be  so 
misled,  in  regard  to  so  important  a  doctrine  as  this? 
This  inquiry  would  seem  to  apply  with  more  force  to 
the  question  in  hand,  if  no  other  error  had  ever  taken 
root,  and  prevailed  in  the  Church,  and  in  the  world. 

But  the  religious  history  of  the  world  is  a  history  of 
error  and  delusion  from  the  very  beginning.  Even  in 
Paradise,  the  very  first  fact  that  is  recorded  of  our  first 
parents  is  that  of  their  deception — and  that,  too,  in  re- 
gard to  this  very  question  of  immortality.  From  that 
time  to  this,  the  vast  majority  of  the  human  family  have 
been  given  over — as  Paul  tells  us  in  Romans  1 — to  the 
most  erroneous,  distorted  and  abominable  ideas  of  God, 
and  of  their  relations  to  Him.  And  even  His  own 
chosen  people,  selected  and  separated  from  the  world  at 
large,  that  He  might  train  them  to  better  views  of  the 
truth,  are  seen  continually  lapsing  into  the  false  notions 
of  the  heathen  nations  that  surrounded  them.  The 
career  of  the  Christian  Church,  from  the  days  of  the 
Apostles  to  the  Reformation,  has  been  one  of  apostasy, 
heresies  and  corruption.     The  repeated  warnings  of  our 

*  Seo  note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 


86  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

Lord  to  His  disciples,  to  "  beware  of  the  tradition  of  the 
elders,"  to  "  beware  of  the  leaven  of  the  Pharisees  " — 
who,  by  the  way,  were  Platonists  on  this  very  question — 
and  the  earnest  exhortation  of  the  Apostles  in  their  Epis- 
tles to  the  early  Christians,  show  us  the  tendency  there 
is,  even  among  true  disciples,  toward  error  and  the 
danger  of  falling  into  it. 

Peter  says,  in  his  Second  Epistle  :  "  There  were  false 
prophets  among  the  people  (in  the  days  of  Moses),  even 
as  there  shall  be  false  teachers  among  you,  who  privily 
shall  bring  in  damnable  heresies,  even  denying  the  Lord 
that  bought  them,  and  bringing  upon  themselves  swift 
destruction ;  and  many  shall  follow  their  pernicious  ways, 
by  reason  of  whom,  the  way  of  truth  shall  be  evil  spoken 
of."  Alas,  how  true  his  words  have  proved!  Paul, 
foreseeing  this  very  error,  writes  to  the  Corinthians,  "I 
fear  lest  by  any  means,  as  the  Serpent  beguiled  Eve, 
through  his  subtilty,  so  your  minds  should  be  corrupted 
from  the  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ."  And  again,  in 
writing  to  Timothy,  he  says :  "  For  the  time  will  come 
when  they  will  not  endure  sound  doctrine,  but  after 
their  own  lusts,  shall  they  heap  to  themselves  teachers, 
having  itching  ears,  and  shall  turn  away  their  ears  from 
the  truth,  and  be  turned  unto  fables." 

Since  the  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  view 
of  the  prevalence  of  such  a  vast  and  increasing  number  of 
sects,  each  contending  for  its  own  peculiar  notions — and 
even  more  earnestly  than  they  contend  for  the  doctrines 
they  hold  in  common, — we  cannot  suppose  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  has  yet  got  beyond  the  possibility  of 
error.  And  still  further,  when  we  come  to  inquire  into 
the  history  of  these  various  creeds,  and  to  learn  how 
they  have  been  made  and  see  how  they  are  transmitted 
from  generation  to  generation,  and  how  few  there  are 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL    AND    RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  87 

who  care  to  search  for  doctrinal  truth  at  the  Fountain 
Head,  and  fewer  still  the  number  of  those  who  dare  to 
compromise  their  standing  in  the  Church  in  which  they 
have  been  educated,  by  differing  from  their  associates 
on  any  popular  doctrine,  and  how  intolerant  and  unfair, 
even  those  who  are  otherwise  very  good  men,  are  toward 
others  that  are  equally  good,  who  may  honestly  differ 
from  them  on  any  point  of  doctrine,  our  respect  for  mere 
human  authority  upon  speculative  questions,  is  very 
much  weakened."*^ 

In  regard  to  any  fact  that  can  be  obseived,  the  testi- 
mony of  intelligent  witnesses  is  to  be  respected,  and  the 
greater  the  number  of  such  credible  witnesses,  the 
stronger  the  evidence  in  its  favor.  But  even  in  regard 
to  facts,  how  often  has  the  careful  observation  of  some 
individual  shown,  that  the  multitude  who  have  gone 
before  him  were  mistaken  ?  But  in  regard  to  matters  of 
speculation,  the  guess  or  opinion  of  one  man,  however 
positive  he  maybe,  is  no  better  than  that  of  another; 
nor  is  its  authoritative  value  increased  by  the  number  of 
followers  he  may  draw  after  him.  Popularity  gives  no 
more  force  to  any  speculative  opinion,  than  there  is  force 
in  the  reason  on  which  it  is  founded.  The  strength  of  a 
chain  that  hangs  insecurely,  cannot  be  increased  by  add- 
ing to  the  number  of  its  links  ;  nor  does  a  traditional 
opinion  gather  any  real  increase  of  authority,  from  the 
number  of  generations  through  which  it  has  come  down 
to  us.  No  time-piece  can  be  depended  on  as  giving  the 
true  time,  however  perfect  its  workmanship,  unless  we 
know  it  to  have  been  set  by  a  true  standard.  If  the 
town  clock  be  wrong,  it  is  none  the  less  wrong,  though 
all  the  time-pieces  in  the  town  have  been  set  by  it ;  and 

*See  note  on  the  New  Congregational  creed  at  the  end  of 
Chap.  X. 


88  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

yet,  their  united  testimony  might  seem  to  countervail 
that  of  any  single  time-piece  that  should  differ  from 
them,  though  it  were  the  only  one  actually  correct. 

An  incident,  exactly  in  point,  occurs  to  the  writer 
while  penning  these  paragraphs.  Haj^pening  to  compare 
his  watch  with  the  clock  of  his  host,  he  noticed  a  wide 
discrepancy  between  the  two  ;  but  when  his  host  assured 
him  that  the  clock  was  an  excellent  time-keeper,  and 
must  be  right,  he  began  to  fear  that  his  own  watch 
might  be  at  fault.  To  prove  the  correctness  of  the  clock, 
the  host  took  out  his  own  watch,  and  found  that  it 
agreed  exactly  with  his  clock.  Here  two  witnesses 
against  one  was  still  stronger  evidence  against  the 
writer's  watch,  and  it  might  have  been  accepted  as  proof 
conclusive  that  it  was  wrong,  had  he  not  taken  the  j^ains 
to  inquire  still  further,  when  he  found,  that  the  clock 
had  run  down  and  stopped,  during  the  night,  and  the 
cook  had  set  it  by  guess,  and  then,  the  host  had  in  con- 
fidence turned  his  own  watch  to  agree  with  it.  Now, 
had  all  the  guests  in  the  house  set  their  time-pieces  by 
this  standard,  the  evidence  against  the  writer's  watch 
would  have  been  apparently  overwhelming,  but  in  fact, 
it  would  have  been  of  no  more  real  value  than  the  opin- 
ion of  the  cook. 

This  is  just  the  case  with  many  of  the  most  popular 
errors  and  delusions  that  have  been  current  in  the  world. 
They  are  specious  and  plausible  enough  to  gain  the 
credence  of  those  who  do  not  inquire ;  but  when  one 
inquires  into  their  origin  and  history,  he  finds  that  they 
have  no  foundation  in  truth. 

This  is  the  case  with  this  wide-spread  and  popular 
error  of  universal  immortality.  It  is  so  agreeable  to  the 
wishes  of  man,  and  so  flattering  to  his  pride,  that  it  is 
well  calculated  to  be  popular.     The  natural  and  Scrip- 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL    AND    RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  89 

tural  arguments  in  its  favor,  may  be  so  marshaled,  as  to 
give  an  air  of  plausibility  to  it,  but  when  one  inquires 
into  its  origin  and  history,  he  finds  the  arguments  for  it 
altogether  specious  and  unreliable,  and  that  it  has  no 
better  authority  to  rest  upon,  than  the  assurances  of  the 
Tempter,  "Ye  shall  not  surely  die,"  to  which  the  con- 
ceits and  speculations  of  poets  and  philosophers  and 
schoolmen,  who  have  adopted  the  suggestion,  add  no 
weight  whatever ;  nor  has  it  any  real  force,  in  the  face 
of  the  most  positive  declaration  of  God's  Word  to  the 
contrary.* 

*"  Unless  we  are  prepared  to  accept  as  true  the  dogma  of 
transubstantiation,  to  wliicli  it  must  be  admitted,  the  recorded 
words  of  Christ  do  give  some  color,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of 
the  Papal  primacy,  of  which  the  same  thing  may  be  said — un- 
less, I  say  we  are  ready  to  receive  these  doctrines  as  true, 
because  the  church  at  large  did  for  centuries  hold  them  with  all 
but  universal  consent,  we  must  allow  that  our  Lord  knowing 
all  things  which  should  happen,  may  have  purposely  used  lan- 
guage, upon  this  point  (eternal  misery)  which  He  foresaw,  might 
very  possibly,  for  a  season,  be  misunderstood,  with  a  view  to 
the  far-off  day  when  a  clearer  light  would  dawn,  and  the  true 
meaning  of  His  word  shine  forth.  May  it  not  be  that  the  very 
ambiguity  of  the  words,  their  capability  of  various  interpre- 
tations, was  intended  to  serve  a  beneficent  purpose?  There 
was  a  long  reach  of  time  in  the  history  of  the  Church,  during 
which  the  belief  generally  held  with  reference  to  eternal  fire 
was  that  it  would  literally  scorch  and  torture  the  flesh.  We 
need  not  be  too  hasty  in  concluding  that  even  this  gross  mis- 
interpretation of  Christ's  words  was  a  calamity.  Who  shall  say 
that  the  rough  peoples,  the  savage  races  to  which  the  gospel 
was  then  being  carried,  could  in  any  other  way  have  been 
made  to  feel  the  terrible  reality  of  retribution  in  the  world  to 
come;  could  any  otherwise  have  been  persuaded  to  look  for- 
ward to  that  retribution  as  a  thing  to  fear?"  Conditional  Im- 
mortality.    Sermon  IV.  on  Matt.  25:  46.    Wm.  R.  Huntington, 

D.D. 


90  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

YII.  The  sufpposed  utility  of  this  doctrine  is  thought 
to  reco7nme7id  it  to  our  favor. 

The  doctrine  of  Immortality  o?i/y  in  Christ  is  objected 
to  by  many  good  people,  not  because  it  would  displease 
them  to  find  it  true,  but  from  fear  of  the  consequences 
of  its  promulgation.  They  think  the  doctrine  of  the 
eternal  misery  of  the  unsaved,  in  the  belief  of  which 
they  have  been  educated,  is  necessary  to  restrain  men 
from  sin,  and  to  bring  them  to  repentance.  We  greatly 
respect  their  pious  anxiety  for  the  maintenance  of  God's 
government,  and  fully  sympathize  with  them  in  their 
desire  to  bring  sinners  to  accept  of  the  salvation  offered 
in  the  Gospel.  We  also  agree  with  them  in  holding  to 
the  truism,  that  God's  Law,  like  every  other  law,  must 
have  a  penalty,  and  one,  too,  that  answers  to  the  offence, 
and  that  the  Gospel  will  never  be  anything  but  foolish- 
ness to  those  who  neither  feel  nor  fear  the  evils  from 
which  it  would  deliver  them.  It  is  not  that  we  desire 
to  weaken  the  motives  of  the  Law  or  of  the  Gospel, 
that  we  are  opposing  this  dogma  of  immortality  in  sin 
and  suffering,  but  rather  to  restore  to  them  the  power 
they  once  had,  and  are  evidently  losing  under  this  false 
teachinsr.  It  is  the  advocates  of  this  false  doctrine — not 
ourselves — who  are  weakening  the  influence  of  both  the 
Law  and  Gospel,  and  bringing  them  into  contemj)t  by 
proclaiming  a  doctrine  which  they  sincerely  hope  may 
not  be  true  after  all ;  and  by  endeavoring  to  make  sin- 
ners receive  it,  and  act  in  view  of  it,  when  they  scarcely 
believe  it  themselves.  Their  mistake  is,  in  supposing 
that  there  can  be  no  doctrine  of  future  punishment  but 
that  which  they  have  received  by  tradition  from  the 
Papal  Church;  that  to  deny  this,  is  to  deny  all  future 
punishment.  They  seem  to  suppose  that  God  has  no 
other  way  of  magnifying  his  holy  Law  and  making  it 


lap.  v.]    NATURAL   AND   RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  91 

lonorable,  but  to  threaten  all  transgressors  with  eternal 
torment. 

But  is  there  nothing  dreadful  in  the  thought  of  being 
excluded  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven  and  all  its  joys 
forever  ? — of  being  counted  unfit  to  live  anywhere  ? — of 
having  one's  "  name  blotted  out  of  the  Book  of  Life  "  ? — 
of  being  absolutely  and  forever  destroyed  from  among 
God's  creatures,  and  forgotten  by  them  ?  Is  there 
nothing  terrible  in  the  prospect  of  a  second  deaths  from 
which  there  is  no  resurrection  ?  Is  there  no  such  thing 
possible  under  the  government  oi  God  as  capital  punish- 
mentf  Is  this  sort  of  punishment  practicable  only 
under  human  government?  And  as  brutal  rulers  some- 
times impose  additional  tortures  upon  their  victims,  and 
protract  their  agonies  in  dying  as  long  as  possible  must 
this  be  the  method  employed  by  our  Almighty  Ruler — 
eternally  protracting  them — in  the  case  of  all  the  un- 
saved, that  He  may  give  dignity  and  honor  to  His  Law 
and  government? 

So  tyrants  have  reasoned  and  practiced,  citing  the 
Divine  Example  as  their  authority  for  all  the  fiendish 
tortures  they  have  chosen  to  inflict  on  the  victims  of 
their  wrath,  fancying,  perhaps,  that  they  were  giving 
force  and  strength  to  their  government.*  But  this  in- 
human practice,  with  the  reasoning  that  sustained  it,  so 
far  as  civil  polity  is  concerned,  has  had  its  day.  A  more 
enlightened  and  human  system  of  penal  jurisprudence 
is  taking  the  place  of  the  old  barbarian  codes  that  were 
once  in  vogue,  and  is  beginning  to  prevail,  everywhere, 

*  Burnet  quotes  "  Bloody  Mary,"  the  persecuting  queen  of 
England,  who  burned  alive  so  many  of  her  best  subjects  during 
her  short  reign,  as  saying,  "  As  the  souls  of  heretics  are  here- 
after to  be  eternally  burning  in  hell,  there  can  be  nothing  more 
proper  than  for  me  to  imitate  the  Divine  vengeance  by  burning 
them  on  earth." 


92  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

at  least  throughout  the  civilized  world ;  and  this,  too, 
with  manifest  advantage  to  justice  and  good  government. 

But  in  theology  the  old  theory  lingers,  the  theodicy 
of  the  dark  ages  still  keeps  its  place  in  the  creeds  of  the 
Christian  Church.  The  Deity  must  be  represented,  not 
as  simply  just,  but  as  infinitely  vengeful  and  cruel.  He 
must  not  withdraw  the  life  He  gave  from  those  whom 
He  cannot  save.  He  must  not  even  let  them  perish  in 
their  own  corruption.  This  would  be  dangerous  leni- 
ency. He  must  keep  them  in  being  forever,  and  inflict 
upon  them  perpetual  wrath  to  all  eternity.  At  any  rate, 
He  must  be  represented  as  threatening  to  do  this,  and 
sinners  must  be  made  if  possible  to  believe  it.  And  then, 
in  order  to  free  Him,  somewhat  from  so  foul  an  asper- 
sion, so  that  men  can  love  and  trust  Him,  it  is  vaguely 
hinted,  that  perhaps,  after  all.  He  will  not  execute  these 
threatenings,  but  that  His  infinite  love  will  find  some 
way,  not  yet  revealed,  of  rescuing  His  children  from  so 
dreadful  a  doom.  Is  this  the  way  to  magnify  the  Law  of 
God  and  make  it  honorable  ?  Must  He  be  represented  as 
more  tyrannical  and  cruel  than  the  woi^st  of  pagan  gods, 
that  men  may  fear  to  sin  against  Him,  and  then  as  insin- 
cere and  too  good  to  fulfil  his  threatenings,  that  men  may 
love  and  trust  Him  ?  Or  must  we  apologize  for  Him,  as 
many  do,  under  the  plea  that  He  cannot  help  Himself; 
for  He  has  made  a  horde  of  creatures  whom  He  can 
neither  govern,  nor  destroy,  for  He  made  them  uncondi- 
tionally indestructible  in  the  outset;  and  the  best  He 
can  possibly  do  is  to  imprison  them  and  keep  them  in 
eternal  misery  ! ! ! 

We  do  not  so  understand  the  truth.  We  sympathize 
most  fully  with  our  opponents  in  the  end  they  would 
secure ;  but  we  believe  there  is  no  more  effectual  way  of 
defeating  it,  than  the  method  they  pursue.     If  there  is 


lap.  v.]    NATUEAL    AND   KATIOI^AL    ARGUMENT.  93 


I  hi 
ly  one  doctrine  of  the  Word  of  God  more  distinctly 
ivealed  than  another,  and  one  that  ought  to  be  preached 
ithout  a  peradventure,  it  is  the  doctrine  of  a  future 
retribution — of  the  absolutely  remediless,  hopeless  condi- 
tion of  those  who  persistently  reject  an  offered  Saviour — 
of  the  eternal  and  irreversible  distinction  that  will  be 
made  between  the  saved  and  the  lost.  But  the  sanctions 
of  God's  law  are  sufficiently  impressive  without  any  hu- 
man additions.  If  there  be  no  power  in  the  threat  of 
death  and  everlasting  destruction,  or  in  the  offer  of  eter- 
nal life,  through  a  crucified  Saviour,  to  move  the  heart  of 
the  sinner,  the  preacher  cannot  hope  to  make  them  effect- 
ive by  any  false  coloring  of  his  own.  He  loses  vastly  more 
than  he  gains  by  attempting  to  exalt  the  judicial  charac- 
ter of  God  at  the  expense  of  His  goodness,  on  the  one 
hand,  or  of  His  truth,  on  the  other.  The  sinner  must 
believe  thaf  God  is  just,  as  well  as  terrible  in  His  judg- 
ment, and  that  He  will  be  as  true  to  all  His  threatenings, 
as  to  His  promises.  But  in  order  to  this,  the  threat- 
enings must  appear  to  be  just.  Fear  without  conviction 
of  sin,  will  never  lead  to  repentance.  Men  may  be 
shocked  and  horrified  by  terrible  descriptions  of  the 
ceaseless,  hopeless  agonies  of  the  lost,  till  every  true  sen- 
timent of  their  moral  natures  revolts  against  the  mon- 
strous injustice  and  cruelty  of  Him  who'  *.  they  are  told 
will  inflict  them.  They  may  be  driven  to  madness,  as 
they  often  are,  by  such  preaching;  but  all  this  has  no 
tendency  to  produce  conviction  of  sin,  or  penitence,  or 
love.  Those  who  have  relied  the  most  on  this  kind  of 
preaching  and  exhortations  have  not  been  the  most  suc- 
cessful in  bringing  men  to  embrace  the  Gospel,  nor  in 
strengthening  the  Church  of  Christ. 

It  will  be  time  enough  to  insist  on  this  style  of  ha- 
rangue,  when  it  shall  be  shown  to  have  had  any  other 


94  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

effect  than  that  of  hardening  men's  hearts,  and  alienating 
them  from  the  religion  that  sanctions  it. 

Certainty  of  conviction  and  punishment  is  a  much 
more  important  element  in  the  prevention  of  crime,  than 
any  threatened  severity  with  the  probability  of  escape. 
There  may  be  a  kind  of  restraint,  for  a  time,  exercised 
over  low  and  groveling  natures  through  the  use  of 
terror;  but  it  soon  exhausts  itself.  Its  ultimate  effect 
is  to  degrade,  demoralize,  and  harden  the  heart.  Yea 
with  some,  it  operates  as  a  kind  of  incentive  to  lawless- 
ness, under  a  spirit  of  bravado.  It  is  found  to  be  a  bet- 
ter policy  even  under  human  governments,  to  endeavor 
to  control  men  by  appealing  to  their  moral  sentiments,  to 
make  them  feel  that  the  penalties  of  law  are  just  and 
necessary,  and  that  they  are  not  inflicted  in  hatred,  but 
in  pity  and  sorrow ;  but,  that  nevertheless,  they  will  be 
surely  inflicted.  This  is  especially  true  as  regards  the 
Divine  Law  that  requires  the  heart  of  the  sinner,  as  well 
as  his  external  obedience.  A  religion  without  confidence 
and  love,  is  little  better  than  no  religion.  It  is  a  sense  of 
God's  goodness  that  leads  men  to  repentance,  if  they  ever 
do  repent.  They  may  be  made  Christians  in  name — the 
world  is  full  of  such — a  servile  conformity  to  the  out- 
ward forms  of  religion  may  be  secured  by  operating  on 
their  fears,  or  by  presenting  selfish  considerations,  they 
may  be  somewhat  restrained  from  open  acts  of  sin ;  but 
they  cannot  be  made  real  Christians ;  they  cannot  be 
made  truly  obedient ;  they  cannot  be  made  pure  and  holy 
in  this  way. 

What  now,  if  men  shall  outgrow  their  early  fears? 
What  if  they  shall  begin  to  suspect  that  they  have  been 
deceived  ?  that  their  real  danger  has  been  grossly  mis- 
represented, in  order  "to  catch  them  by  guile"?  A  re- 
action is  sure  to  follow.     Both  the  Law  and  the  Gospel 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL   AND   RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  95 

will  fall  into   contempt,  and  they  will  be  further  from 
hope  than  before. 

This  is  just  what  we  are  seeing  at  the  present  day ; 
and  the  evil  is  rapidly  increasing.  Complaint  is  made 
that  the  pulpit  is  losing  its  power  over  the  masses  ;  that 
vital  religion  is  dying  out  in  our  Churches;  that  the  Sanc- 
tuary is  comparatively  deserted  ;  that  our  educated  men 
are  becoming  infidels ;  that  there  is  a  great  lack  of  the 
true  missionary  spirit  in  our  theological  schools;  that 
our  young  men  and  women  are  not  offering  themselves 
as  earnestly  as  in  former  times,  to  carry  the  Gospel  mes- 
sage to  the  destitute.  All  this  is  lamentably  true.  The 
cause  is  not  far  to  seek.  This  false  doctrine  of  the  nec- 
essary immortality  of  all  men,  even  in  sin  as  well  as  in 
holiness,  is,  in  fact,  driving  the  whole  community  into  a 
skepticism  in  regard  to  the  future  condition  of  the 
wicked,  which  threatens  to  extinguish  all  religious  zeal 
and  earnest  effort  for  the  salvation  of  sinners  every- 
where. Why  should  we  be  greatly  concerned  for  the 
ignorant  heathen,  if  they  will  probably  have  a  better  op- 
portunity to  embrace  salvation  after  death?  If  those 
myriads  of  millions  of  human  beings  are  destined  to  an 
endless  existence,  as  they  are  said  to  be,  it  cannot  be 
doubted,  that  a  just  and  merciful  God  will  provide  some 
effectual  way  of  rescuing  them,  if  not  here,  certainly 
hereafter,  from  eternal  woe.  It  seems  incredible  that 
Pie  should  foredoom  from  their  birth  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  human  race  to  endless  misery,  for  the  sin  of  their 
progenitors,  or  even  for  their  own  short-comings,  without 
giving  them,  at  least,  "  a  fair  chance  "  to  escape,  either 
before  or  after  death.  It  seems  incredible  that  He 
should  perpetuate  the  wretched,  worthless  existence  of 
any  creature,  however  bad  he  may  be,  in  sin  and  misery 
without  hope  and  without  end  in  the  life  beyond.     It  is 


96  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

incredible.  No  wonder  that  thoughtful  men  under  the 
stress  of  this  dogma,  and  the  logical  conclusion  to  which 
it  brings  them,  should  seek  relief  in  the  hypothesis  of 
universal  salvation,  or  at  least,  of  a  post-mortem  proba- 
tion. But  if  they  would  consent  to  drop  their  philoso- 
phy, and  accept  of  the  simple  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures 
— of  immortality  only  in  Christ — they  would  have  no  oc- 
casion for  such  unscriptural  hypotheses. 

It  is  not  incredible  that  God  should  create  a  race  of 
mortal  men ;  nor  that  He  should  give  them  only  a  con- 
ditional immortality,  founded  on  their  fitness  to  enjoy 
it ;  nor  that  He  should  permit  them  to  become  mortal 
through  sin,  and  then  offer  them  Everlasting  Life,  as  a 
gift  of  grace  through  a  Saviour,  conditioned  on  their 
repentance  for  sin,  and  acceptance  of  Him  as  their 
Saviour.  It  is  not  incredible  that  He  should  judge  and 
punish  all  men  both  from  Christian  and  heatlien  lands, 
beyond  this  life,  according  to  their  several  deserts,  some 
with  few  stripes  and  others  with  many  stripes  ;  nor  that 
there  should  be  a  Second  Deaths  for  the  unsaved  and  an 
Eternal  Life  for  his  loyal,  loving  subjects  only. 

This  is  just  what  God's  Word  teaches,  as  we  read  it. 
And  we  would  fain  hope  that  this  may  be  made  evident 
to  those  who  will  consent  to  keep  us  company,  as  we 
now  turn  from  these  broken  cisterns  that  men  have  hewed 
out  for  themselves,  to  the  Everlasting  Fountain  of  truth 
and  reverently  inquire,  "What  saith  the  Scriptuee?" 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL    AND    RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  97 

Note. — The  Advocates  of  the  dogma  of  the  natural  im- 
mortality of  man  have  so  commonly  asserted  that  this  is, 
and  ever  has  been  the  general  belief  of  the  world,  and  have 
so  confidently  founded  what  they  regard  as  one  of  their 
strongest  arguments  in  support  of  it  on  this  general  belief, 
that  we  feel  called  to  notice  it  more  particularly,  not  that  it 
would  lend  any  real  strength  to  their  cause,  were  it  true, 
but  to  show  that,  so  far  from  being  the  fact,  just  the  con- 
trary is  true;  and  if  any  argument  at  all  is  to  be  founded  on 
the  opinion  of  mankind,  it  certainly  inures  to  our  advantage. 
This  is  shown  by  Dr.  Whately,  whom  we  have  already  cited, 
and  by  Prof.  Hudson,  in  his  learned  work,  The  Doctrine  of 
a  Future  Life^  and  by  others.  We  quote  the  following  from 
a  recent  English  volume  entitled  The  Promise  of  Life  by 

J.  F.  B.  TiNLING,  A.B. 

"The  fallacy  of  this  popular  argument  lies  partly  in  the  state- 
ment of  fact,  and  partly  in  the  inference  deduced  from  it.  First, 
as  to  the  fact.  We  readily  grant  that  there  is  nothing  upon 
which  men  have  more  speculated  than  the  possibility  of  a  life 
after  death — nothing  about  the  fundamental  or  elementary 
thought  of  which  there  has  been  so  general  an  agreement  in  all 
times  and  circumstances.  But  this  admission  is  very  different 
from  the  assertion  referred  to.  That  beings  endowed  with  in- 
tellect, thwarted  and  interrupted  by  death,  and  yet  surrounded 
by  natural  phenomena  suggestive  of  a  life  out  of  death,  should 
speculate  upon  the  possibility  of  a  future  state  would  be  inevit- 
able, even  if  no  future  state  were  intended  for  them.  To  wish  to 
live  is  natural,  and  the  wish  is  father  to  the  thought.  But  we 
also  recognize  the  influence  of  traditional  truth  in  these  specula- 
tions. The  defaced  remnants  of  a  primitive  religion  have  doubt- 
less done  as  much  as  the  hopes  and  fears  of  man  to  shape  his 
expectations  of  a  future.  Yet  all  these  influences  together  have 
never  produced  that  common  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul  which  is  so  confidently  asserted.  In  the  days  of  Socrates— 
in  the  home  and  springtime  of  philosophy— most  men  accord- 
ing to  the  great  moralist's  testimony,  believed  that  at  death  the 
soul  would  utterly  perish  with  the  body;  and  his  statement  was 
confirmed  by  the  fact  that  in  the  great  plague  of  Athens,  the 
multitude,  instead  of  being  moved  by  religious  faith  to  prepare 
for  a  future  state,  plunged  into  excesses  of  sensuality  as  havring 
no  expectation  of  anything  that  could  be  spared  to  them  by 
death.  If  this  was  the  case  with  Greece  in  the  height  of  her 
5 


98  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  I. 

glory,  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  rest  of  the  world,  for 
the  most  part  comparatively  thoughtless  and  barbarous,  were 
found  to  have  generally  possessed  a  consciousness  of  immor- 
tality. 

"  In  order  to  estimate  rightly  the  prevailing  thought  of  man- 
kind upon  this  subject  before  the  introduction,  or  apart  from 
the  influence,  of  Christianity,  we  must  consider  the  religions 
of  the  world  in  three  great  and  natural  divisions.  The  first  of 
these  consists  in  the  faiths  which  have  been  moulded  by  primi- 
tive tradition;  the  second,  in  the  offspring  of  speculation,  and 
the  third  in  the  effect  of  revelation.  It  is  impossible  to  keep 
these  divisions  quite  separate — they  overlap  and  modify  one 
another;  but  this  fact  need  not  prevent  us  from  appreciating 
their  distinctive  characteristics,  or  observing  what  tradition, 
philosophy  and  Judaism  had  to  say  respectively  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

"  Turning  our  attention  first  to  the  great  examples  of  tradition 
— to  Chaldea,  Egypt  and  India — we  are  struck  with  a  common 
feature  which  is  often  hastily  identified  with  a  belief  in  immor- 
tality. This  is  metempsychosis,  or  the  transmigration  of  souls, 
which  Herodotus  describes  particularly  as  held  by  the  ancient 
Egyptians,  and  which  is  a  common  tenet  of  Brahminism  and 
Buddhism,  and,  therefore,  of  one-half  of  the  modern  population 
of  the  globe.  Professor  Roth,  of  Tubingen,  even  understands 
the  Rig  Veda,  the  most  sacred  of  the  Shastras  of  India,  to  teach 
the  annihilation  of  the  wicked.  At  any  ratef,  there  is  nothing 
in  this  Eastern  doctrine  implying  the  individual  immortality  of 
the  soul.  The  mental  or  spiritual  part  of  man  was  held  to  be 
an  emanation  from  the  Deity,  which  during  a  long  course  of  years 
— in  the  Egyptian  mythology,  3000— will  animate  many  or  even  all 
kinds  of  living  creatures,  and  at  last  will  return  to,  and  lose  its 
individuality  in  God,  like  a  drop  of  water  returning  to  the  ocean. 
It  has  been  truly  said,  '  The  Orientals  are  pervaded  with  a  i)ro- 
found  horror  of  individual  existence,  and  with  a  profound  desire 
for  absorption  into  the  infinite  Being.'  Here  is  certainly  no 
belief  in  immortality  in  the  sense  in  which  Christians  under- 
stand the  word.  In  the  systems  of  India  all  hope  or  thought 
respecting  individual  existence  is  bounded  by  the  expectation 
of  universal  convulsions  of  nature,  which  take  place  at  immense 
intervals,  and  in  which  every  created  being  is  doomed  to  perish. 

"  Nor  if  we  examine  the  mythologies  of  rude  and  childlike 


Chap,  v.]    NATURAL   AND   RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  99 

tribes,  shall  we  find  traces  of  a  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  while  evidence  of  a  contrary  belief  is  by  no  means  uncom- 
mon. That  strange  confusion  of  the  ideas  of  survival  and  im- 
mortality which  we  have  noticed  as  underlying  the  arguments 
of  Christian  philosophers  and  which  shuts  up  many  minds  to 
the  alternative  of  no  existence  or  endless  existence  after  death, 
appears  but  little  in  the  conceptions  of  uncivilized  people.  Along 
the  coast  of  Guinea  the  negroes  throw  their  dead  into  the  sea, 
in  order  that  the  soul  may  be  extinguished  soon  after  the  death 
of  the  body.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Sandwich  and  Fiji  islands 
believed  firmly  in  survival  but  expected  wicked  spirits  to  be  de- 
voured by  devils  or  by  human  spirits  stronger  than  themselves. 
Druidism  in  Europe  presents  an  exceptional  belief  in  uncondi- 
tional immortality,  but  here  it  is  mixed  up  with  the  transmigra- 
tion of  souls,  and  with  the  doctrine  of  a  final  universal  salvation. 
Zoroastrianism  contrasted  similarly  in  Asia  with  surrounding 
systems.  It  included  the  idea  of  resurrection  as  well  as  that  of 
immortality.  Its  declaration  respecting  the  punishment  of  the 
wicked  is  as  follows:  'The  author  of  evil  shall  not  exult  over 
them  forever ;  their  prison-house  will  soon  be  thrown  open ;  the 
pangs  of  three  terrible  days  and  nights,  equal  to  the  agonies  of 
9000  years,  will  purify  all,  even  the  worst  of  demons.  The 
anguished  cry  of  the  damned,  as  they  writhe  in  the  lurid  cauld- 
ron of  torture  will  find  pity  in  the  soul  of  Ormuzd.'  Thus  here 
also  immortality  is  associated  with,  and  seems  to  have  demanded 
a  belief  in  universal  salvation.  Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  false  religion,  except  savage  Mohamedanism,  which  is 
neither  traditional  nor  speculative,  but  an  eclectic  imposture, 
framed  under  the  influence  of  corrupted  Judaism  and  Christ- 
ianity, exhibits  the  idea  of  the  individual  immortality  of  wicked 
men. 

"  Let  us  now  glance  at  the  conclusions  of  speculative  philoso- 
phy. The  great  thinkers  of  Greece— from  Pythagoras  to  Zeno— 
and  their  illustrious  Roman  disciples  were  less  original  in  their 
speculations  on  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man  than  they  were 
in  the  ethical  or  moral  laws  which  they  laid  down,  and  the  con- 
siderations by  which  they  endeavored  to  commend  them. 

"They  were  men  of  vast  intellect,  culture,  and  courage,  and 
most  of  them  confirmed  themselves  in  their  superiority  by  ex- 
tensive travel  and  observation  of  the  superstitions  or  philoso- 
phies of  other  lands,  especially  those  of  Chaldea  and  Egypt. 


100  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  I. 

They  had  the  sense,  too,  to  adopt  what  they  could  not  improve, 
and  thus  Pythagoras  received  from  Egypt,  or  India,  or  both, 
the  Oriental  theory  of  the  divine  origin,  transmigration  and 
final  absorption  of  souls.  But  neither  he  nor  any  who  followed 
him — and  most  of  these  were  content  to  endoree  his  conclusions 
on  the  subject — seem  to  have  conceived  the  idea  of  an  individ- 
ual immortality.  How  little  like  Christian  belief  were  these 
theories  of  the  greatest  minds  of  antiquity  will  appear  from  a 
glance  at  the  teaching  of  Plato  the  disciple  and  equal  of  Socra- 
tes. To  him  the  world  was  an  animal  with  a  rational  soul. 
•  The  souls  of  men  were  formed  from  the  remainder  of  the  ration- 
al soul  of  the  world  which  had  previously  given  existence  to 
the  invisible  gods  and  demons.'  Even  these  fancies,  distantly 
related  as  they  were  to  a  definite  and  reasonable  hope  of  im- 
mortality, seem  rarely,  if  ever,  to  have  amounted  to  conviction 
in  those  that  held  them.  Cicero  said  that  while  he  was  reading 
Plato  he  was  convinced  of  immortality,  but  that  as  soon  as  he 
laid  down  the  book  his  doubts  returned ;  and  Archbishop  Whate- 
ly — no  mean  judge  of  the  reasoning  powers  and  conclusions  of 
others — has  left  his  judgment  of  these  speculations  of  philosophy 
in  the  following  words:  *  As  to  what  Plato  and  afterward  Cice- 
ro and  others,  said  in  behalf  of  immortality,  no  reader  of  their 
own  class  seems  to  have  had  even  any  suspicion  of  their  being  in 
earnest.'  Thus  we  may  safely  conclude  that  the  supposed  uni- 
versal consciousness  of  individual  immortality  finds  neither 
proof  nor  illustration  among  the  master-thinkers  of  the  past. 

"Our  inquiry  now  turns  to  the  possessors  of  Divine  Revelation 
— the  revelation  of  the  Old  Testament,  What  did  the  Jews  be- 
lieve respecting  the  immortality  of  the  soul  ?  On  this  point  we 
have  from  the  New  Testament  the  very  important  information 
that '  the  Sadducees  said  there  was  no  resurrection,  neither  angel 
nor  spirit.'  Thus  human  consciousness  failed,  even  in  connec- 
tion with  Moses  and  the  prophets,  to  demonstrate  natural  im- 
mortality to  the  intellectual,  aristocratic,  and  priestly  class 
which  divided  with  the  Pharisees  the  religious  authority  of  the 
Jews.  But  the  Pharisees  themselves  were  far  from  being  a  com- 
pact body  of  believers  in  individual  immortality.  It  is  true 
Josephus  describes  them  as  such,  but  his  authority  has  long 
been  more  than  doubtful.  We  may  be  content  to  set  against  it 
a  few  decisive  quotations.  The  Rev.  S.  Cox,  a  competent  author- 
ity, says:  'The  Jewish  fathers  of  our  Lord's  time  differed  on 


Chap.  Y.]    NATURAL   AND   RATIONAL   ARGUMENT.  101 

the  ultimate  issue  of  the  state  and  punishment  in  Gehenna. 
Some  held  that  it  would  issue  in  the  ultimate  salvation  of  all 
who  were  exposed  to  it,  while  others  held  that  it  would  issue 
in  their  destruction,  the  very  souls  of  sinners  being  burned  up 
and  scattered  by  the  wind.'  Nemesius,  a  writer  of  the  fifth 
century,  implies  that  the  preponderating  belief  of  the  Jews  was 
the  destructibility  of  the  soul.  The  great  Rabbi,  Maimonides 
clearly  taught  this  doctrine  in  the  twelfth  century,  saying:  '  The 
punishment  that  awaits  the  wicked  man  is  that  he  will  have  no 
part  in  eternal  life,  but  will  die  and  be  utterly  destroyed.  He 
will  not  live  forever,  but  for  his  sins  will  be  cut  off  and  perish 
like  a  brute ;'  and  Dr.  Bentley  the  great  scholar  and  critic,  refers 
to  the  same  belief  of  annihilation  as  '  what  some  of  the  learned- 
est  doctors  of  the  Jews  have  esteemed  the  most  dreadful  of  all 
punishments,  and  have  assigned  for  the  portion  of  the  blackest 
criminals  of  the  damned,  so  interpreting  Tophet,  Abaddon,  the 
valley  of  slaughter  and  the  like  for  final  extinction  and  depriva- 
tion of  being.' 

"  We  are  forced  by  these  testimonies  to  the  conclusion  that 
among  the  Jews,  as  among  the  idolatrous  nations  and  the  phil- 
osophers of  the  world,  we  must  seek  in  vain  for  either  an  in- 
tuitive or  a  prevalent  belief  in  individual  immortality." 


PART  THE  SECOND. 


The  Question  of  Human  Immortality  Considered 
in  the  Light  of  Revelation. 


**He  that  helieveth  not  God  hath  made  him  a  Liar  ;  because  he 
believeth  not  the  record  that  God  gave  of  His  Son,  And  this  is 
the  record;  Thaty  God  hath  given  to  us  Eternal  Life  ;  and  this 
Life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  Life^  and  he 
that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God  hath  not  the  Life.^* 

1  John  5:  10-12. 

"  I,  at  first  with  two  fair  gifts, 
*'  Created  him  endowed — with  happiness 
"  And  immortality :  that  fondly  lost, 
**  This  other  served  but  to  eternize  woe, 
*•  Till  I  provided  death.'' 

Milton's  Paradise  Lost  xi.  57,  etc. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LOGOD^DALY. 

We  have  seen  how  vague  and  unsatisfactory  are  the 
teachings  of  Nature  and  Reason  on  this  great  question 
of  human  immortality.  It  is  conceded  by  all  who  ac- 
knowledge the  Divine  Authority  of  the  Scriptures,  that 
we  must  rely  mainly,  if  not  entirely,  on  them  to  an- 
swer this  and  other  cognate  inquiries.  Indeed  this  is 
the  special  object  for  which  they  have  been  given  to  us. 

But  before  proceeding  to  inquire  of  these  Divine  Ora- 
cles, "  What  saith  the  Scriptures  ? "  let  us  pause  for  a 
moment  and  ask  ourselves  if  we  are  sincerely,  and  hon- 
estly desirous  of  knowing  what  they  do  say,  and  willing 
to  accept  of  their  teaching  on  this  question,  as  authori- 
tative and  final  ?  or  have  we  a  theory  of  our  own  in  regard 
to  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man,  which  we  would  be 
glad  to  have  confirmed,  and  which  we  shall  try  to  sus- 
tain if  possible  ?  Are  we  willing  to  take  the  plain,  literal 
words  of  Scripture '  on  this  question,  as  expressing  the 
truth,  or  must  they  be  warped  and  twisted  to  make  them 
agree  with  some  preconceived  theory  of  our  own  ?  Or 
must  some  new  meaning  be  put  into  them,  to  make  them 
teach  what  we  think  they  ought  to  teach  ? 

Unless  we  are  willing,  however  wise  we  may  think  our- 
selves, to  take  the  attitude  of  docile  listeners  at  the  feet 
of  the  Master,  and  to  believe  what  He  says,  and  believe 
it  because  He  says  it,  and  as  He  says  it,  the  study  of  His 
.Word,  upon  this,  or  any  other  disputed  point,  will  be  of 
little  use  to  us.  One  may,  by  the  exercise  of  ingenuity, 
6*  106 


106  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIPT.  [Part  11 

"  accommodate  "  the  Scriptures  to  a  seeming  support  of 
almost  any  doctrine  he  may  bring  to  them.  By  selecting 
certain  pliable  passages,  and  putting  a  new  meaning  into 
their  crucial  words,  and  by  explaining  away  other  pas- 
sages as  metaphors,  and  treating  others,  as  of  doubtful 
authority,  he  may  prove  from  the  Bible,  to  his  own  satis- 
faction, and  perhaps  to  the  satisfaction  of  others  who 
trust  him,  doctrines  to  which  it  actually  gives  no  coun- 
tenance. 

Scholastic  ingenuity  has  shown  itself  equal  to  the  task 
of  defending,  from  the  Scriptures,  all  the  anti-christian  and 
abominable  errors  and  practices  of  the  Papal  Church.  In- 
deed, all  the  varying  and  conflicting  sects  of  the  present 
time,  claim  the  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  in  support  of 
their  peculiar  tenets,  and  can  bring  forward  a  formidable 
array  of  texts  in  evidence  of  their  truth — if  one  will  only 
accept  of  the  construction  they  put  upon  them. 

It  is  not  because  our  Divine  Teacher  puts  forth  the 
truth  in  a  vague  and  ambiguous  way,  after  the  manner 
of  the  heathen  oracles,  that  men  have  held  such  contra- 
dictory notions  of  it,  and  have  so  disagreed  as  to  the  es- 
sential doctrines  of  His  Word ;  but  simply  because  they 
have  brought  their  own  various  notions  and  prejudices  and 
prepossessions  and  philosophies  to  that  Word,  and  read 
them  into  it.  And  if  the  language  itself  of  their  i^roof 
texts  does  not  exactly  express  their  ideas,  it  is  quite  easy 
to  give  a  new  turn  to  any  pivotal  word,  or  to  say  that  it 
should  be  taken  in  a  tropical  sense.  This  is  what  is 
called  J^iblical  Exegesis  or  Hermeneiitics^  in  our  theologi- 
cal schools.  Then  these  learned  theologians,  of  the  various 
schools,  must  write  their  commentaries  and  expositions, 
to  tell  the  unsophisticated  just  what  these  texts  ought  to 
mean,  and  what  they  do  not  mean,  and  when  they  are  to 
be  taken  in  one  sense,  and  when  in  another,  just  the 
opposite. 


Chap.  YI.]  LOGOD^DALY.  107 

But  what  if  the  Greek  and  Hebrew  words  of  the  Orig- 
inal Scriptures  will  not  bear  these  new  senses  they  would 
put  upon  them  ?  What  if  these  meanings  are  not  to  be 
found  in  their  Standard  Classical  Lexicons?  These  too 
must  be  overhauled,  and  special  "  Biblical  Lexicons  "  pre- 
pared for  the  use  of  Bible  scholars,  with  these  new 
meanings  put  upon  these  words,  and  the  places  in  the 
Bible  particularly  referred  to,  where  these  words  should 
be  taken  in  this  new  sense ;  and  this  is  called  the  "  Scrip- 
tural sense  "  of  these  words ! ! 

This  is  no  exaggerated  hypothesis.  The  writer  has 
such  an  improved  (?)  Lexicon  attached  to  his  Greek  Tes- 
tament, which  he  bought  when  a  student  of  Theology.* 
It  was  evidently  prepared  in  the  interest  of  the  Platonic 
theory  of  the  natural  immortality  of  man,  and  in  sup- 
port of  such  interpretations  of  Scripture  as  this  theory 
requires.  It  may  be  instructive  to  give  from  its  pages  a 
few  specimens  of  this  sort  of  learned  logodcedaly.  We 
open  the  Testament  at  Matthew  7:13,  and  read  as 
follows ; 

"Enter  ye  in  at  the  strait  gate;  for  wide  is  the  gate,  and 
broad  is  the  way  that  leadeth  to  destruction  {apoleian)  and  many 
there  be  which  go  in  thereat ;  because  strait  is  the  gate,  and 
narrow  is  the  way  which  leadeth  unto  life  {zden)  and  few  there 
be  that  find  it." 

We  know  what  "  destruction  "  means  in  the  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word,  and  what  apoleia  means  in  Greek ; 
they  both  mean  the  same  thing.  But  we  want  to  know 
the  "  Scriptural   sense "  of  the  word.     So  we  turn  to 

*  "  The  Polymicrian  Gkeek  Lexicon  to  the  New  Testament 
in  which  the  various  senses  of  the  words  are  distinctly  ex- 
plained in  English,  and  authorized  by  references  to  passages  of 
Scripture.  By  W.  Greenfield,  Editor  of  Bagster's  Compre- 
hensive Bible,  The  Polymicrian  Greek  Testament,  etc."  Lon- 
don. 


108  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

our  Biblical  Greek  Lexicon ;  and  after  the  various  ordi- 
nary definitions  are  given,  we  are  referred  to  this  pas- 
sage, and  informed  that  it  here  means  '''•perdition^'* 
^^  misery,'''*  etc.  We  look  out  the  word  perdition,  in 
Webster's  Dictionary,  and  find  that  its  religious  sense  is 
"  the  utter  loss  of  the  soul,  or  of  final  happiness,  in  a 
future  state."  We  know  also,  what  the  word  "life" 
means  in  English,  and  what  the  word  zoe  means  in  Greek ; 
they  both  mean  the  same  thing.  But  that  we  may  find 
out  just  what  the  "  Scriptural  sense "  of  the  word  is, 
we  again  consult  our  Biblical  Lexicon,  where  its  ordinary 
sense  is  very  correctly  given  ;  but  we  are  referred  to  this 
passage,  and  told  that  it  here  means  "  eternal  happiness P 
Now  having  got  the  true  "  Scriptural  "  meaning  of  these 
two  crucial  words,  from  this  learned  lexicographer,  we 
know  how  to  understand  the  passage.  It  should  be 
read  thus : 

"Enter  ye  in  at  the  strait  gate;  for  wide  is  the  gate  and 
broad  is  the  way  that  leadeth  to  misery,  and  many  there  be 
which  go  in  thereat;  because  strait  is  the  gate,  and  narrow  is 
the  way  which  leadeth  unto  eternal  happiness,  and  few  there  be 
that  find  it." 

Again,  we  read  in  Romans  5 :  12,  as  follows  : 

"  Wherefore  as  by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
death  [thanatos)  by  sin;  and  so  death  {thanatos)  passed  upon  all 
men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 

We  know  well  enough  what  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word  "  death  "  is,  and  that  it  means  the  same  as  thanatos 
in  Greek,  but  that  we  may  know  what  the  "  Scriptural 
sense "  of  the  word  is,  we  again  consult  our  Biblical 
Lexicon.  We  find  the  word  correctly  defined,  so  far  as 
its  ordinary  sense  is  concerned,  but  we  are  referred  to 
this  passage,  and  told  that  it  here  means,  "  an  unchang- 
ing eternal  state  of  wretchedness  and  misery T    Hence, 


Chap.  VI.]  LOGOD^DALT.  109 

we  are  to  understand  this  passage  as  though  it  read  as 
follows : 

*' Wherefore,  as  by  one  man  sin  entered  into  the  world,  and 
an  unchanging,  eternal  slate  of  wretchedness  and  misery  by  sin, 
and  so  an  unchanging,  eternal  state  of  wretchedness  and  misery 
passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 

Where,  we  ask,  did  our  Biblical  lexicographer  get  the 
peculiar  "  Scriptural  Sense,"  which  he  puts  upon  the 
pivotal  words,  in  these  and  other  similar  texts,  bearing 
on  this  question  ?  How  does  he  know  that  the  "  destruc- 
tion" of  the  wicked  does  not  mean  destruction,  but  only 
misery,  and  that  the  "life,"  which  is  promised  to  the 
righteous,  is  not  actual  life,  but  simply  "  eternal  happi- 
ness ;"  or  that  the  "  death,"  that  is  the  fruit  of  sin,  is  not 
actual  death,  but  on  the  contrary,  is  "  an  uiichanging 
eternal  state  of  wretchedness  and  misery  "  f  The  classical 
writings  of  the  Greeks,  in  the  time  of  our  Lord,  and 
when  the  Scriptures  were  written,  do  not  justify  any  such 
sense  as  the  lexicographer  puts  into  these  Greek  words. 
What  authority  has  he  then,  for  putting  this  sense  into 
them  in  his  Biblical  Greek  Lexicon?  None  whatever, 
unless  it  be  the  authority  of  his  cotemporaries  and  pred- 
ecessors, of  the  same  school  of  philosophy,  whose  lead 
he  has  followed.  They  all  have  evidently,  first  read  these 
meanings  into  these  words,  to  make  them  accord  with 
their  own  philosophy,  and  then  have  transferred  them  to 
their  lexicons  to  justify  their  reading.* 

The  Greek  word  psuche^  with  its  Hebrew  analogue 
nephesh^  usually  translated  "  soul,"  "  life,"  etc.,  is  treated 

*  Prof.  Cremer,  in  his  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament,  while 
asserting  that  in  Scripture  these  terms  {apollumi,  etc.),  stand 
for  the  eternal  misery  of  mankind,  frankly  allows  that  "such 
a  signification  is  peculiar  to  the  New  Testament,  and  without  an- 
alogy in  classical  G>^eek^^l  t    Life  in  Christ,  page  361. 


110  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  IL 

in  the  same  way.  Under  psuche  in  my  Biblical  Greek 
Lexicon,  various  texts  of  Scripture  are  referred  to,  where 
the  word  is  said  to  mean,  "that  in  us  which  thinks,  feels, 
wills,  and  renders  us  immortal^  This  may  represent 
well  enough  the  meaning  which  is  given  to  the  word 
"  soul,"  in  English,  by  those  who  hold  to  the  philosophy 
of  Plato.  Webster,  in  the  earlier  editions  of  his  great 
dictionary — though  this  has  been  eliminated  from  the 
later  editions — defines  "  soul "  as  "  the  spiritual,  rational 
and  irmnortal  principle  in  man,"  as  though  he  would 
effectually  stop  all  inquiry  as  to  its  immortality,  by  mak- 
ing it  enter  into  the  definition  of  the  word  itself ;  and 
then,  as  if  to  close  the  door  of  the  Christian  Church 
against  all  who  do  not  accept  of  his  philosophy,  he  gra- 
tuitously adds :  "  The  immortality  of  the  soul  is  SLfmi- 
damental  article  of  the  Christian  system " ! !  But 
neither  this  word  psuche  nor  its  analogue  nephesh,  has 
any  such  high  signification  in  the  Scriptures.  They 
simply  designate  that  principle  of  life,  which  is  common 
to  man  and  to  beast ;  and  are  so  used  very  commonly 
throughout  the  Bible.  They  are  frequently  used  to  indi- 
cate personality,— as  so  many  souls  or  j^ersons, — but 
never,  in  that  high  Plato'nic  sense,  in  which  the  word 
"  soul "  is  now  understood.  We  can  say  with  confidence, 
that  not  one  single  passage  can  be  found  in  all  the  Bible, 
in  which  any  natural  immortality  of  the  nephesh  or  the 
psuche  is  asserted,  or  even  hinted  at,  or  implied ;  nor 
can  this  idea  be  put  into  them,  without  doing  violence  to 
the  text.  And  our  Biblical  lexicographers  have  no  au- 
thority whatever  for  endeavoring  to  fasten  this  anti- 
christian  doctrine  upon  these  Scriptural  words. 

Numerous  other  passages  are  referred  to  in  the  same 
way  by  this  Lexicographer.  Guided  by  him,  we  are  to 
read  as  follows ; 


Chap,  yi.]  LOGOD^DALY.  Ill 

John  11:  25.     "I  am  the  Kesurrection  and  the  (zoe)  Hap' 

John  6:  53,  54.  "  Except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man, 
and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  (zoe)  happiness  in  you.  Who- 
so eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood,  hath  eternal  {zoe) 
happiness,  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day." 

But  this  method  of  giving  another  sense  to  these  Scrip- 
ture utterances  is  not  peculiar  to  this  author.  Robinson, 
in  his  Lexicon  of  the  New  Testament  pursues  the  same 
method.  Under  zoe,  after  first  giving  its  true  classical 
and  ordinary  meaning  as  "  life,  existence  as  opposed  to 
death  and  non-existence,"  he  brings  to  it  another  meaning 
to  make  it  accord  with  the  theory  of  the  natural  and  neces- 
sary immortality  of  all  men,  which  he  calls  the  "  Christian 
sense."  This  is  "  a  happy  life,  welfare,  happiness." 
And  he  puts  this  meaning  into  such  passages  as  he  pleases 
and  refers  the  reader  to  them,  that  he  may  know  just  how 
they  are  to  be  sophisticated.  Let  us  turn  to  a  few  of 
these  texts  and  see  how  they  are  to  be  read  according  to 
his  Lexicon. 

1  Tim.  4:  8.  "  Godliness  is  profitable  unto  all  things  having  the 
promise  of  the  (zoe)  happiness  that  now  is,  and  of  that  which  is 
to  come." 

Rom.  5: 17, 18.  **  For  if  by  one  man's  offence  (thanatos)  death 
reigned  by  one ;  much  more,  they  which  receive  abundance  of 
grace,  and  of  the  gift  of  righteousness,  shall  reign  in  (zoe)  hap- 
piness by  one  Jesus  Christ.  Therefore  as  by  the  offence  of  one, 
judgment  came  upon  all  men  to  condemnation;  even  so  by  the 
righteousness  of  one,  the  free  gift  came  upon  all  men  unto  justi- 
fication of  (zoe)  happiness.^^ 

Here  it  will  be  seen,  as  elsewhere  so  often  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, zoe,  life,  is  contrasted  with  thanatos,  death,  and  to 
render  it  "happiness"  destroys  the  contrast,  unless  thana- 
tos  be  translated  "  misery."  And  this  is  what  we  are 
taught  to  do.  And  this  is  just  what  makes  the  writings 
of  Paul  such  a  puzzle  to  all  who  follow  the  lead  of  these 


112  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

teachers,    and   so  difficult   of  explanation  by  all  these 
commentators. 

1  John  5:  11,12.  "  This  is  the  record  that  God  hath  given 
to  us  eternal  (zoe)  happiness,  and  this  happiness  is  in  His  Son. 
He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  happiness,  and  he  that  hath  not 
the  Son,  hath  not  the  happiness." 

But  are  we  not  elsewhere  assured  that  the  Son  hath 
Immortality,  Self -existence.  Eternal  Life  in  Himself ;  and 
is  not  this  the  zoe,  Life,  which  He  imparts  to  all  believers  ? 
This  is  indeed  something  more  than  happiness.  It  is 
LiFE,*a  life  that  includes  every  blessing  that  makes  life 
desirable  and  blessed.  Why  not  change  the  meaning  of 
this  word  in  numerous  other  places  and  read,  "  We  know 
that  we  have  passed  from  {thanatos)  death  unto  happi- 
ness "/  "  The  Tree  of  happiness "/  "  The  water  of  hap- 
piness "/  "  The  Book  of  happiness^''  etc.  ?  Surely  we 
shall  do  better  to  deal  honestly  with  the  language  of  in- 
spiration, and  acknowledge  Jesus  Christ  to  be  the  Source, 
not  merely  of  happiness,  as  He  is,  but  also  of  Eternal 
Life,  as  He  Himself  declares,  and  receive  it  as  the  Gift 
of  God's  grace  from  Him. 

We  would  not  question  the  honesty  of  these  lexicog- 
raphers, and  Biblical  commentators  and  expositors  and 
theological  professors.  Many  of  them  we  have  learned 
to  love  and  respect  from  personal  acquaintance,  as  very 
worthy  Christian  men.  No  doubt  they  are  sincerely 
endeavoring  to  give  to  others  what  they  believe  to  be 
the  real  meaning  of  God's  Word,  as  they  have  received 
it  from  their  teachers,  and  predecessors, — and  they,  by 
tradition  from  theirs.  It  is  more  the  fault  of  the  system, 
than  of  individuals.  This  practice  has  come  in  gradu- 
ally, with  the  philosophy  that  requires  it,  and  has  been 
handed  down  with  it  from  generation  to  generation,  as 
the  only  way  of  bringing  the  Word  of  God  into  agree- 


Chap.  YI.]  LOGOD^DALY.  113 

ment  witb  that  philosophy,  which  if  taken  literally,  it 
actually  contradicts.  It  has  been  so  thoroughly  incor- 
porated into  our  theological  systems,  and  so  firmly  estab- 
lished, by  the  practice  of  ages,  that  these  learned  men 
think  it  is  just  the  thing  for  them  to  do,  to  put  an 
ethical  or  figurative  sense  upon  all  those  words,  which 
declare  death  to  be  the  penalty  of  sin,  and  life-t  eternal 
life^  the  portion  only  of  those  who  are  saved.  And  the 
confiding,  humble  disciple,  anxious  to  know  just  what 
the  Scriptures  teach,  instead  of  reading  them,  as  he 
would  any  other  book,  must  needs  supply  himself  with 
these  helps,  that  he  may  know  when  he  is  to  understand 
these  words  in  their  plain  obvious  sense,  and  when  in  an 
ethical,  or  tropical  or  a  peculiar  sense.  In  this  way  he 
qualifies  himself  to  teach  his  congregation  or  his  class  in 
the  Sabbath  school,  or  his  children,  or  others  whom  he  is 
called  to  instruct  in  the  things  of  religion. 

No  other  reason  can  be  given — there  is  no  other  rea- 
son— why  the  plain,  simjile  word  maveth^ — thayiatos^ — 
deaths  whether  in  the  Hebrew,  Greek  or  English  should 
not  be  taken  to  mean  actual,  literal  death  when  man  is 
spoken  of  in  the  Scriptures,  as  it  is  when  any  other  liv- 
ing creature  or  thing  is  spoken  of — but  just  this — the 
Platonic  philosophy,  which  has  been  taken  into  our 
Christian  system,  as  one  of  its  fundamental  principles, 
and  which  must  be  read  into  the  Scriptures,  forbids  it. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  word  chai  (Heb.),  zbe 
(Greek),  Life,  But  with  respect  to  this  latter  word 
"  life,"  the  unlearned  reader  labors  under  this  further  dis- 
advantage, that  there  are  two  words  both  in  the  original 
Greek  and  Hebrew  Scriptures  that  are  rendered  by  our 
one  English  word  ''  life,"  and  they  are  quite  distinct  from 
each  other — The  word  nephesh  (Hebrew)  or  psuche 
(Greek)  which  is  sometimes  rendered  "  life,"  and  some- 


114  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

times  "  soul "  always  refers  to  that  transitory  principle  of 
life,  which  man  has  in  common  with  all  other  earthly 
creatures,  and  the  Hebrew  adjective  olam  or  the  Greek 
adjective  aidnios  signifying  eternal,  everlasting,  etc., 
are  never,  never  joined  with  it.  But  whenever  that 
higher  life,  which  Christ  Himself  possesses  and  which 
He  gives  to  His  people, — that  life,  which  is  received  in 
the  new  birth,  that  spiritual  life  which  is  pure  and  eter- 
nal,—  is  spoken  of,  the  word  zoe  is  always  used,  and  the 
adjective  aidnios  eternal  is  constantly  coupled  with  it; 
Also  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  far  as  this  new  life  is  re- 
vealed, the  word  chai  is  employed,  and  to  this  the  adjec- 
tive olam  everlasting  is  joined.  No  Bible  scholar,  who 
is  acquainted  with  these  languages  has  any  excuse  for 
failing  to  note  these  distinctions. 

That  these,  and  other  words  are  never  employed  in  a 
figurative  sense  in  the  Scriptures,  no  one  pretends  to 
assert.  The  Bible  aboimds  in  figures  of  speech.  These 
constitute  one  of  its  principal  charms  in  a  literary  point 
of  view.  But  these  figures  are  self-interpreting.  At 
any  rate,  they  are  not  such  as  to  mislead  and  to  contra- 
dict its  sober,  didactic  teaching.  When  the  Prophet 
speaks  of  the  trees  clapping  their  hands,  or  when  Christ 
calls  Herod  a  fox,  no  one  need  misunderstand  what  is 
meant.  But  the  teaching  of  God's  Word  is  not  all  of 
this  sort.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  plain,  practical,  com- 
mon sense  instruction  in  it,  adapted  to  the  comprehen- 
sion of  the  simplest  minds.  Surely,  in  His  annunciation 
of  His  Holy  law  and  its  sanctions  of  life  and  deaths  we 
may  expect  our  Sovereign  to  use  such  plain  literal  lan- 
guage as  will  not  be  misunderstood — that  cannot  be, 
unless  it  is  violently  perverted.  No  human  ruler  would 
be  justified  in  giving  to  his  subjects  a  law  couched  in 
ambiguous  terms.     Nor  has  our  Divine  Lawgiver  done 


Chap.  VI.]  LOGODJEDALY.  115 

tliis.*  It  is  only  the  perversity  of  man  that  would  make 
the  threatenings  and  promises  of  His  Holy  Word  seem 
to  teach  something  different  from  what  the  words  them- 
selves assert. 

The  Hebrew  people  before  the  coming  of  Christ  had 
been  led  into  this  same  vicious  practice  of  explaining 
away  the  Scriptures,  their  Rabbins  and  doctors  of  the 
law  had  prepared  for  them  the  Talmud  and  Targums  con- 
taining, together  with  the  Divine  Word,  the  explications 
and  comments  and  traditions  of  their  wise  men ;  and  the 
people  had  been  taught  to  look  to  these,  rather  than  to 
the  Word  itself,  for  their  instruction  in  the  things  of  re- 
ligion. Our  Lord  rebuked  them  in  His  day,  telling  them 
that  they  had  made  the  Word  of  God  of  none  effect  by 
their  traditions.  "  In  vain,"  says  He  "  do  they  worship 
Me,  teaching  for  doctrines  the  commandments  of  men ; " 
and  He  would  say  the  same  of  the  practice  as  it  now 
prevails. 

Here  is  the  only  real  difficulty  we  encounter  in  discuss- 
ing this  question  with  those  who  differ  from  us.  It  is 
quite  evident  that  if  the  declarations  of  the  Word  of  God 
are  to  be  taken,  in  their  literal  and  ordinary  sense,  the 
doctrine  for  which  we  contend  is  established  beyond  all 
dispute.  It  abounds  in  passages  which  declare  in  the 
most  positive  manner  that  "  the  soul  that  sinneth  it  shall 
die.''''  "  Sin  when  it  is  finished  bringeth  forth  death,'''' 
"The  wicked  is  reserved  for  the  day  of  destruction.^'' 
"  Whose  ejid  is  destruction  ;  "  "  Who  shall  be  punished 
with  everlasting  destruction ; "  "  They  shall  be  destroyed 
forever ;  "  "  They  shall  utterly  perish  in  their  own  cor- 
ruption ; "  And  others,  which  promise  to   the  righteous 

*  "  It  seems  a  strange  way  of  understanding  a  law  which  re- 
quires the  plainest  words,  that  by  'Death,'  should  be  meant 
eternal  life  in  misery."    JoiHN  Locke. 


116  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

"  length  of  days  forever  and  ever,"  that  to  those,  "  who 
by  patient  continuance  in  well  doing,  seek  for  glory  and 
honor,"  God  will  give  "  immortality  "  /  "  My  sheep  hear 
my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow  me ;  and  I 
give  unto  them  Eternal  Life ;  and  they  shall  never  per- 
ish, neither  shall  any  one  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand  "  ; 
"  Yerily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  if  any  man  keep  my  say- 
ing he  shall  never  see  death  "  etc.,  etc.  And  still  other 
passages,  that  contrast  the  final  end  of  these  two  classes, 
as  follows :  "  The  wages  of  sin  is  deaths  but  the  gift  of 
God  is  Eternal  Life^  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 
*'  For  God  so  loved  the  world,  that  He  gave  His  only  be- 
gotten Son  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish^  but  have  Eternal  Life."  "  This  is  the  record  that 
God  hath  given  us  Eternal  Life,  and  this  Life  is  in  His 
Son ;  Se  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  Ziife,  and  he  that 
hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  the  Life^"^  etc.,  etc. 

What  if  we  take  these  passages  with  a  multitude  of 
others  equally  explicit,  and  set  them  in  long  array  before 
the  eyes  of  the  reader?  They  will  have  no  convincing 
force  whatever,  on  the  minds  of  those  who  have  been 
taught  to  believe  that  the  wicked  cannot  actually  die, 
cannot  utterly  perish;  cannot  be  completely  destroyed 
forever,  and  that  "length  of  days  forever  and  ever," 
"immortality  "  or  eternal  existence  is  not  the  peculiar 
lot  of  the  saved,  but  is  the  natural  and  inalienable  inher- 
itance of  all  men,  whether  saved  or  not.  They  are  so 
thoroughly  inured  to  the  practice  of  putting  a  meta- 
phorical or  ethical  or  poetical  sense  on  these  expressions 
which  they  have  learned  to  call  the  Scriptural  sense, 
whenever  they  conflict  with  the  popular  sentiment  of 
the  world,  in  regard  to  the  indestructible  nature  of  man, 
that  this  seems  to  them,  to  be  the  real  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  they  look  with  suspicion  upon  any  one  whc 


Chap.  VI.]  LOGOD^DALY.  117 

ventures   to  think  that    they  should  be    understood  as 
meaning  actually  and  literally  what  they  say.* 

We  solemnly  protest,  in  the  name  of  Truth  and  of 
Him  whose  Word  is  Truth,  against  such  unwarranted 
treatment  of  the  Scriptures,  as  subversive  of  all  true 
doctrine.  "  If  the  foundations  be  destroyed  what  can 
the  righteous  do  ?  "  If  men  are  to  be  allowed,  without 
rebuke,  to  bring  their  own  notions  or  opinions  or  poetical 
fancies  or  philosophies  or  dogmas,  however  popular  they 
may  be — to  the  Word  of  God  and  to  read  them  into  it, 
and  to  "  accommodate  "  its  language  to  them,  by  putting 
extraordinary  meanings  into  its  simple  terms,  we  have 
no  standard  of  Divine  truth,  no  defence  against  error 
of  any  sort,  no  credible  authority  for  any  doctrine  what- 
ever.f     We   are   liable   to   be   "tossed  to  and  fro   and 

*  "  Why  did  not  a  host  of  texts  open  their  eyes  and  show 
them  their  mistake?  In  reply  we  ask,  why  does  a  straight 
stick  put  into  the  water  look  crooked?  And  why  will  no  argu- 
ments make  it  look  straight?  Simply  because  it  is  seen 
through  a  distorting  medium.  So  men  search  the  Scriptures 
forever,  with  a  pre-established  belief  in  their  own  indestructi- 
bility and  they  will  be  only  more  and  more  confirmed  in  their 
belief  of  eternal  evil.  The  longer  they  look  at  the  stick,  the 
more  certain  they  will  become  that  it  is  crooked.  This  ac- 
counts for  the  otherwise  perplexing  fact,  that  some  of  the  most 
determined  advocates  of  this  doctrine  are  men  who  have  stud- 
ied the  Bible  all  their  lives,  and  in  many  points  have  the  deep- 
est understanding  of  it.  It  also  accounts  for  the  rapiditj  and 
thoroughness  with  which  many  persons  change  their  views  as 
soon  as  their  eyes  are  opened  to  see  the  fundamental  fallacy 
that  underlies  them.  The  moment  the  stick  is  taken  out  of 
the  water,   it  appears  perfectly  straight."      Glory  of  Christ. 

S.    MiNTON. 

t"It  is  always  safe  to  trust  the  poets  [!]  not  much  moral 
truth  has  got  into  the  world  except  through  them  "  [!]  On  the 
Tlireshold,  Lecture  to  Young  Men.  T.  T.  Mungek.  This  is 
what  one  of  the  popular  religious  teachers  of  the  present  day 


118  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

carried  about  with  every  wind  of  doctrine,  and  by  the 
sleight  of  men,  and  cunning  craftiness  whereby  they  lie 
in  wait  to  deceive."  We  might  as  well,  yea  better, 
throw  aside  the  so-called  "Word  of  God,"  and  every 
man  adopt  that  scheme  of  doctrine  which  pleases  him 
best.  It  is  but  solemn  mockery  to  prate  about  the 
"  Sacred  Scriptures,"  and  to  talk  of  their  "  inspiration," 
and  to  call  them  "  The  Oracles  of  God,"  if  they  are  not 
to  be  allowed  to  speak  for  themselves,  and  are  not  to  be 
accepted  as  meaning  what  they  say.  It  is  bad  enough  to 
bribe  a  human  witness  to  testify  falsely  ;  but  how  shall 
we  characterize  the  crime  of  extorting  a  false  testimony 
from  the  Divine  Word  and  claiming  it  in  behalf  of  errors 
it  denounces  ? 

**  Behold  I  am  against  the  prophets,  saith  the  Lord,  that  use 
their  tongues,  and  say  *  He  saith.^  Behold  I  am  against  them 
that  prophesy  false  dreams,  and  do  cause  my  people  to  err  by 
their  lies  and  by  their  Ughtness.  They  speak  a  vision  out  of 
their  own  heart,  and  not  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  Lord. 

"The  prophet  that  hath  a  dream,  let  him  tell  a  dream,  and  he 
that  hath  my  Word,  let  him  speak  my  Word  faithfully." 

Jjet  him  speak  my  word  faithfully.  This  is  what  we 
propose  to  do.  And  unless  some  better  reason  shall  be 
given  ior  discrediting  the  testimony  of  Scripture  on  this 
question  of  Immortality,  than  the  assurance  of  the  great 
Deceiver  "Ye  shall  not  die,"  or  the  philosoj^hy  of  Plato 
whi«h  endorses  it,  or  the  teaching  of  an  apostate  Church, 
which  has  made  it  one  of  the  fundamental  principles  of 
her  faith,  or  the  popular  tradition   of  the  present  day, 

says.  But  we  would  fain  believe  that  some  moral  truth  has 
got  into  the  world  through  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  and  that  it  is 
quite  as  safe  to  learn  of  Him  who  is  called  Hie  Light  of  Men, 
and  to  believe  what  He  says  in  respect  to  the  future  life— yea, 
infinitely  more  safe  when  we  see  how  flatly  they  contradict 
Him. 


Chap.  YI.]  LOGODJEDALT.  119 

which  makes  it  heresy  to  call  it  in  question,  we  shall  ven- 
ture to  understand  the  words  of  Jehovah  as  spoken  by 
Himself,  and  by  His  prophets  and  apostles  and  by  Jesus 
Christ  our  Saviour,  as  meaning  just  what  they  say.  "  The 
wages  of  Sin  is  death,  but  the  gift  of  God  is  eternal 
LIFE  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

That  this  is  the  explicit  and  uniform  teaching  of  Scrip- 
ture from  Genesis  to  Revelation,  if  its  language  is  to  be 
taken  as  meaning  what  it  expresses,  we  hope  to  make  evi- 
dent to  every  inquirer  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  ex- 
amine the  array  of  passages  we  shall  cite — But  if  its  lan- 
guage is  not  to  be  so  taken,  then  it  is  useless  to  attempt 
to  prove  anything  by  the  testimony  of  Scripture. 


120  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

Note. — The  late  Archbishop  Whately,  renowned  alike  for 
his  piety,  learning  and  logical  powers,  has  stated  the  Scriptural 
arguments  on  both  sides  of  this  question  with  such  clearness 
and  candor  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Future  State,  that  we  cannot 
forbear  to  quote,  somewhat  at  length,  a  portion  of  his  Eighth 
Lecture.  The  fact  that  he  reviews  the  question  not  as  a  parti- 
san nor  even  as  an  advocate  of  any  view,  but  rather  as  a  cau- 
tious discriminating  judge  must  surely  entitle  his  opinion  to 
the  respectful  consideration  of  every  sincere  inquirer. 

"  The  Scriptures  do  not,  I  think,  afford  us  any  ground  for 
expecting  that  those  who  shall  be  condemned  at  the  last  day  as 
having  wilfully  rejected  or  rebelled  against  their  Lord,  will 
be  finally  delivered :  that  their  doom,  and  that  of  the  evil  an- 
gels, will  ever  be  reversed. 

"  What  that  doom  will  be, — whether  the  terms  in  which  it  is 
commonly  spoken  of  in  Scripture,  '  death,'  '  destruction,'  '  per- 
ishing,' etc.,  are  to  be  understood  figuratively,  as  denoting 
immortal  life  in  a  state  of  misery,  or  more  literally,  as  denoting 
a  final  extinction  of  existence,— this  is  quite  a  different  ques- 
tion. It  is  certain  that  the  words,  '  life,'  *  eternal  life,'  'immor- 
tality,' etc.,*  are  always  applied  to  the  condition  of  those,  and 
of  those  only,  who  shall  at  the  last  day  be  approved  as  'good 
and  faithful  servants,'  who  are  to  '  enter  into  the  joy  of  their 
Lord.' 

"  '  Life.'  as  applied  to  their  condition,  is  usually  understood  to 
mean  'happy  life.'  And  that  theirs  will  be  a  happy  life,  we 
are  indeed  plainly  taught;  but  I  do  not  think  we  are  anywhere 
taught  that  the  word  '  life '  does  of  itself  necessarily  imply  hap- 
piness. If  so,  indeed,  it  would  be  a  mere  tautology  to  speak  of 
a  '  happy  life ' ;  and  a  contradiction  to  speak  of  a  '  miserable 
life; '  which  we  know  is  not  the  case,  according  to  the  usage  of 
any  language.  In  all  ages  and  countries,  'life,'  and  the  words 
answering  to  it  in  other  languages,  have  always  been  applied, 
in  ordinary  discourse,  to  a  wretched  life,  no  less  properly  than 
to  a  happy  one.  Life,  therefore,  in  the  received  sense  of  the 
word,  would  apply  equally  to  the  condition  of  the  blest  and  of 
the  condemned,  supposing  these  last  to  be  destined  to  continue 
for  ever,  living  in  a  state  of  misery.  And  yet,  to  their  condi- 
tion the  words  'life'  and  'immortality,'  never  are  applied  in 
Scripture.  If,  therefore,  we  suppose  the  hearers  of  Jesus  and 
His  Apostles  to  have  understood,  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the 
ordinary  sense,  the  words  employed,  they  must  naturally  have 
conceived  them  to  mean  (if  they  were  taught  nothing  to  the 
contrary)  that  the  condemned  were  really  and  literally  to  be 
^destroyed,'  and  cease  to  exist;  not  that  they  were  to  exist  for 
ever  in  a  state  of  wretchedness.  For  they  are  never  spoken  of  as 
being  kept  alive,  but  as  forfeiting  life;  as,  for  instance,  'Ye  will 
not  corae  unto  Me  that  ye  might  have  life:'   '  He  that  hath  the 

♦See  John  xx.  31;  v.  29;  xi.  25;  1  Pet.  iii.  7;  1  Cor.  u.  15,  16. 


Chap.  VI.]  LOGOD^DALT.  121 

Son  hath  life;  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  of  God  hath  not 
life.'  And  again,  'perdition,'  'death,'  'destruction,'  are  em- 
ployed in  numerous  passages  to  express  the  doom  of  the  con- 
demned. All  which  expressions  would,  as  I  have  said,  bo 
naturally  taken  in  their  usual  and  obvious  sense,  if  nothing 
were  taught  to  the  contrary. 

"That  these  expressions  however  are  to  be  understood  not 
in  their  ordinary  sense,  but  figuratively,  to  signify  an  immor- 
tality of  suffering,  is  inferred  by  a  large  proportion  of  Christ- 
ians, from  some  other  passages;  as,  where  our  Lord  speaks  of 
' everlasting  punishment,'  ' everlasting  lire,'  and  of  being  'cast 
into  hell,  where  their  worm  dietli  not,  and  the  fire  is  not 
quenched.' 

"  This  last  expression  of  His  is  taken  from  the  book  of  tho 
prophet  Isaiah  (Ixvi.  24),  who  speaks  of  'the  carcasses  of  the 
men  that  have  transgressed,  whose  worm  shall  not  die,  neither 
shall  their  fire  be  quenched ;  and  they  shall  be  an  abhorring  unto 
all  flesh ' ;  describing  evidently  the  kind  of  doom  inflicted  by 
the  eastern  nations  on  the  vilest  offenders,  who  were  not  only 
slain,  but  their  bodies  deprived  of  the  rites  of  burial,  and  either 
burned  to  ashes  (which  among  them  was  considered  a  great 
indignity),  or  left  to  moulder  above  ground,  and  be  devoured 
by  worms. 

"  From  such  passages  as  these  it  has  been  inferred  that  the 
sufferings,  and  consequently  the  life,  of  the  condemned,  is 
never  to  have  an  end.  And  the  expressions  will  certainly  bear 
that  sense;  which  would,  perhaps,  be  their  most  obvious  and 
natural  meaning,  if  these  expressions  were  the  only  ones  on  the 
subject  that  are  to  be  found  in  Scripture.  But  they  will  also 
bear  another  sense;  which  if  not  niore  probable  in  itself,  is  cer- 
tainly more  reconcilable  with  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the 
words  'destruction,'  etc.,  which  so  often  occur.  The  expres- 
sions of  'eternal  punishment,'  'unquenchable  fire,'  etc.,  may 
mean  merely  that  there  is  to  be  no  deliverance. — no  revival— no 
restoration — of  the  condemned.  *  Death,'  simply,  does  not  shut 
out  the  hope  of  being  brought  to  life  again;  'eternal  death* 
does.  '  Fire '  may  be  quenched  before  it  has  entirely  consumed 
what  it  is  burning ;  '  unquenchable  fire '  would  seem  most  nat- 
urally to  mean  that  which  destroys  it  utterly. 

"It  may  be  said,  indeed,  that  supposing  man's  soul  to  be  an 
Immaterial  being,  it  cannot  be  consumed  and  destroyed  by  lit- 
eral ??2a^eria^  fire  or  worms.  That  is  true;  but  no  more  can  it 
suffer  from  these.  We  all  know  that  no  fire,  literally  so  called, 
can  give  us  any  pain  unless  it  reach  our  bodies.  The  *  fire,' 
therefore,  and  the  'worm,'  that  are  spoken  of,  must,  at  any 
rate,  it  would  seem,  be  something  figuratively  so  called ;— some- 
thing that  is  to  the  soul,  what  worms  and  fire  are  to  a  body. 
And  as  the  effect  of  worms  or  fire  is  not  to  prefierve  the  body 
they  prey  upon,  but  consume,  destroy,  and  put  an  end  to 
it,  it  would  follow,  if  tho  correspondence  hold  good,  that  tho 
fire,  figuratively  so  called,  which  is  prepared  for  the  condemned, 

6 


122  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

is  something  that  is  really  to  destroy  and  put  an  end  to  them ; 
and  is  called  '  everlasting '  or  '  unquenchable '  fire,  to  denote 
that  they  are  not  to  be  saved  from  it,  but  that  their  suffering  is 
to  hQ  final.  So  in  the  parable  of  llie  tares,  our  Lord  desca"ibes 
Himself  as  saying,  '  Gather  ye  first  the  tares,  and  bind  them  in 
bundles  to  burn  them;  but  gather  the  wheat  into  my  garner^  ; 
as  if  to  denote  that  the  one  is  to  be  (as  we  know  is  the  practice 
of  the  husbandman)  carefully  i^reserved,  and  the  other  com- 
pletely put  an  end  to. 

'•  We  must  not  indeed  venture  to  conclude  at  once,  from  our 
conviction  of  the  divine  goodness  and  power,  that  evil  will  ever 
cease  to  exist;  since  we  know  not  how  to  explain  the  existence 
of  any  evil  at  all.  We  can  only  say  there  is  some  unknown 
cause  for  it;  and  that  it  is  a  foolish  presumption  to  think  of 
assigning  a  limit  to  the  effects  of  an  unknown  cause,  except 
where  revelation  guides  us.  But  when  we  are  told  that  Christ 
IS  to  'reign  till  He  shall  put  all  things  under  His  feet,'  and  that 
'  the  last  enemy  that  shall  be  destroyed  is  death  'y  this  does  af- 
ford some  ground  for  expecting  the  ultimate  extinction  of  evil 
and  of  suffering,  by  the  total  destruction  of  such  as  are  incapa- 
ble of  good  and  of  happiness.  If  *  eternal  death '  means  final 
death, — death  without  any  revival, — we  can  understand  what  is 
meant  by  Death  being  the  last  enemy  destroyed,  viz. :  that  none 
henceforth  are  to  be  subjected  to  it.  But  if  '  death '  be  under- 
stood to  mean  everlasting  life  in  misery,  then,  it  would  appear 
that  death  is  never  to  be  destroyed  at  all;  since,  altliough  no 
one  would  be  henceforth  sentenced  to  it,  it  would  still  be  going 
on  as  a  continual  infilction,  for  ever. 

"On  the  whole,  therefore,  I  think  wo  are  not  warranted  in 
concluding  (as  some  have  done)  so  positively  concerning  this 
question  as  to  make  it  a  point  of  Christian  faith  to  interpret 
figuratively  and  not  literally  the  'death'  and  'destruction* 
spoken  of  in  Scripture  as  the  doom  of  the  condemned ;  and  to 
insist  on  the  belief  that  they  are  to  be  kept  alive  for  ever."— 
"  Scripture  Revelations  of  a  Future  State,'* 


CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Creation  of  Man. 

In  the  first  three  chapters  of  the  Bible,  we  have,  what 
purports  to  be,  a  true  account  of  the  creation  of  man, 
his  temptation  and  fall,  and  the  consequent  forfeiture,  by 
sin,  for  himself  and  his  posterity,  of  life,  the  perpetuity 
of  which,  was  conditioned  on  perfect  obedience  to  his 
Maker. 

The  historical  verity  of  this  account  is  largely  ques- 
tioned, at  the  present  day.  "  In  some  scientific  circles, 
in  which  Christian  faith  has  no  place,  this  narrative  is 
now  regarded  as  one  of  many  similar  fables  of  the  early 
world, — the  truth  being  that  there  was  no  first  man,  and 
no  fall  of  man,  but  a  gradual  rise  from  the  animal  level 
up  to  humanity,  through  the  ages  of  an  immeasurably 
distant  past.  In  other  scientific  and  theological  circles, 
where  Christian  faith  still  maintains  its  hold  on  Revela- 
tion in  general,  the  narrative  is  regarded  as  an  alle- 
gory wholly  destitute  of  historical  reality,  but  setting 
forth  in  pictorial  form  the  early  struggles  of  man  with 
the  lower  forces  of  nature,  and  the  ascension  of  the 
spirit  through  discipline  and  temptations  to  the  heights 
of  faith  in  God.  Among  Christian  believers  of  this  class, 
it  is  now  boldly  aflirmed  that  it  is  impossible  to  attach 
any  historical  value  to  the  idea  of  the  ruin  of  the  world 
by  the  common  ancestor  of  the  race."  * 

*  Genesis  the  Third,  History  not  Fable.  Kev.  E.  White, 
London. 

123 


124  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

While  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  a  majority  of 
Christian  scholars  would  willingly  allow  themselves  to 
be  included  in  this  latter  class,  it  is  quite  evident  that 
the  narrative  is  very  generally  accepted — if  accepted  at 
all, — with  an  incredulous  smile,  Avhich  indicates  the  very 
feeble  hold  it  has  upon  their  confidence. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  notice  the  various  ob- 
jections that  are  urged  against  it,  nor  the  various  hy- 
potheses that  have  been  offered  in  its  place,  nor  even  to 
enter  into  any  argument  in  its  favor.  We  cannot  make 
room  for  such  matters  in  this  brief  volume.  It  must 
suffice  for  our  purpose  to  say,  that  it  is  a  portion,  and  an 
important  and  integral  portion  of  the  Scriptures,  which 
we  receive  as  the  Word  of  God.  It  is  given  to  us  in 
the  form  of  a  true  narrative  of  facts,  without  one  hint 
that  it  is  to  be  taken  in  any  other  sense.  It  is  referred 
to  in  other  parts  of  the  Bible,  and  by  our  Lord  Himself, 
as  a  true  narrative.  St.  Paul  assumes  its  truth  as  the 
basis  of  his  argument,  in  his  Epistles  to  the  Romans 
and  the  Corinthians,  on  the  very  question  we  have  in 
hand.  And  we  shall  venture  to  do  the  same.  It  will 
be  time  enough  for  us  to  reject  it  for  some  other  theory 
of  the  genesis  of  man,  and  the  entrance  of  sin,  with  all 
its  sad  fruits  of  sorrow  and  death  into  our  world,  when 
our  wise  men  shall  be  able  to  present  us  with  one  upon 
which  they  themselves  can  agree,  or  which  has  any  bet- 
ter claim  to  our  faith.  It  is  to  those  who  acknowledge, 
with  us,  the  Divine  authority  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of 
this  narrative  as  a  part  of  them,  that  our  Scriptural  Ar- 
gument concerning  the  transitory  nature  of  smful  man 
and  his  immortality  only  through  redemption  by  Christ 
is  especially  addressed,  with  the  hope  that  it  will  seem  to 
them,  as  it  does  to  us,  impregnable.  As  for  others, 
there  is  a  previous  question  for  them  to  settle  before  we 


Chap.  YII.]  THE   CREATION   OP  MAN.  125 

can  hope  to  influence  their  mind  even  though  they 
should  consent   to   listen   to   us. 

It  will  be  understood  that  it  is  the  creation, — not  of 
this  earth,  nor  of  the  lower  races  of  animals  but — of 
man  that  concerns  us  in  this  inquiry.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  process,  and  however  long  may  have  been 
the  time  taken  to  bring  this  world,  with  all  its  furniture 
of  life  and  beauty  to  completion,  it  was  not  till  every- 
thing had  been  made  ready  for  his  occupancy  and  use 
that  God  created  man,  the  highest,  and  noblest,  as  wel] 
as  the  last  of  all  earthly  creatures. 

He  created  him  "  in  His  own  image  and  after  His  own 
likeness,"  not  as  equal  to  Himself  in  any  of  the  attri- 
butes of  His  infinite  nature,  certainly  not  in  his  chiefest 
and  most  peculiar  attribute  of  independent  existence.* 
For  this  would  have  been  impossible,  even  for  God  Him- 
self. Man,  in  being  made  in  the  image  of  God  and  after 
His  own  likeness,  was  made  neither  omnipotent  nor  om- 
niscient, nor  omnipresent,  nor  self-existent  and  eternal  in 
his  being.  But  he  was  endowed  with  a  free  will,  and  the 
power  of  intelligent  action,  and  authority  to  exercise  do- 
minion within  the  earthly  sphere  where  he  was  placed, 

*''If  it  be  urged  that  because  there  had  been  imprinted 
upon  Adam  at  his  creation  the  image  of  his  Maker,  therefore 
he  could  not  die,  it  is  enough  to  answer  that  the  dewdrop 
shows  the  image  of  the  sun  only  so  long  as  it  quivers  uncon- 
sumed;  presently  the  burning  heat  scorches  the  drop  into 
vapor,  and  the  image  flies.  Indeed,  it  seems  to  be  the  very 
nature  of  images  that  they  should  be  perishable  unless  care  is 
taken  to  keep  them  in  existence.  The  image  on  the  sensitive 
plate  of  the  photographer  will  prove  as  transient  as  it  is  beau- 
tiful, if  it  be  not  presently  plunged  in  the  'flxing-bath,'  which 
gives  it  permanence.  Man  made  to  reflect  the  image  of  Him 
that  created  him,  ceased  perfectly  to  do  so  the  moment  the 
cloud  of  selfishness  came  between  him  and  the  Sun."  Condi- 
tional Immortality^  Sermon  VI.,  by  Wm.  R.  Hujc^tinqton,  d.d. 


126  THE   tTNSPBAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

and  with  the  faculty  of  knowing,  loving  and  consciouely 
obeying  His  Maker.  In  all  this,  as  well  as  in  the  beauty 
and  perfection  of  his  body,  he  was  superior  to  all  other 
creatures  of  earth.  Some  have  supposed  that  his  physi- 
cal form  was  modeled  after  that  which  was  peculiar  to 
the  Eternal  Son  of  God,  before  His  manifestations  to  the 
world.  But  still  he  was  amenable  to  the  law  of  his  Cre- 
ator, and  as  dependent  on  His  will  for  the  continuance  of 
his  life  and  all  that  he  possessed,  as  he  was  for  his  origi- 
nal endowments. 

By  what  process  the  inferior  animals  were  brought 
into  existence,  we  know  nothing  beyond  the  fact  that 
God  created  them.  Nor  are  we  here  called  to  notice  the 
various  scientific  speculations  on  this  subject.  But  we 
have  a  more  particular  account  of  the  creation  of  man, 
as  we  might  expect.  But  still,  the  record  is  very  brief  ; 
and  many  questions  are  left  for  conjecture  on  our  part, 
which,  within  certain  limits,  may  be  indulged,  provided 
the  record  itself  be  not  impeached. 

The  sacred  historian  informs  us  that : 

"  The  Lord  Grod  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and 
breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life  {neshamah  chaiyim 
the  breath  of  lives),  and  man  became  a  living  soul  {nephesh 
chaiyah).^^ 

In  this  summary  passage  there  are  several  points  to 
be  noticed : 

1.  The  materials  from  which  man  was  made  were  not 
extra  mundane,  or  superior,  in  any  respect,  to  those  that 
entered  into  the  composition  of  other  earthly  creatures 
and  things.  They  were  the  same — "the  dust  of  the 
earth." 

2.  Man  was  fully  made  and  completed,  and,  as  it 
appears,  in  the  maturity  of  his  bodily  form,  before  he 
began  to  live.  "  God  formed  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground." 


Chap.  YII.]  THE   CREATION   OP  MAN.  127 

3.  Nothing  is  now  wanting  to  make  him  a  living  man 
or  "  a  living  soul,"  but  the  "  breath  of  life,"  and  when 
God  breathed  this  into  him,  he  became  a  living  soul. 
The  words  here  translated,  "  breath  of  life,"  are  nesha- 
mah  chaiyim.  Neshamah  means  breath,  or  the  vital  air 
we  breathe  in  common  with  all  animals.  It  seems  to  be 
nearly,  if  not  quite,  synonomous  with  the  word  ruach^ 
which  is  more  frequently  employed  to  express  the  same 
idea.  Chaiyim  is  the  plural  of  the  word  chai  or  chai- 
yah,  meaning  "life."  The  expression  ^^  Go^  breathed'''' 
this  vital  air  "  into  his  nostrils,"  is  of  course  anthropo- 
morphic, that  is,  a  representation  of  God  acting  like  a 
man.  We  are  not  to  suppose  that  God  actually  breathes 
as  do  men  and  animals  of  flesh  and  blood.  He  is  a  Spirit, 
He  existed  before  the  air  was  created,  and  is  dependent 
on  nothing  for  the  support  of  Flis  life.  But  He  is  rep- 
resented anthropomorphically  to  us  in  the  Scriptures,  to 
bring  His  acts  within  our  comprehension.  There  ap- 
pears to  be  nothing  peculiar  to  man  in  the  fact  of  the 
communication  of  this  breath  of  life  to  him.  For  the 
brutes  themselves  are  represented  as  having  the  breath 
of  life  in  their  nostrils  also ;  as  in  Gen.  7  :  22,  where  the 
same  words,  with  still  greater  emphasis,  by  the  addition 
of  ruach,  are  employed  as  follows  :  "  All  in  whose  nos- 
trils was  the  breath  of  life  (^neshamah  ruach  chaiyim, 
the  breath  of  the  spirit  of  lives) — died." 

4.  The  phrase  nephesh  chaiyah,  translated  in  this  pas- 
sage, "living  soul,"  certainly  designates  nothing  peculiar 
to  man,  for  it  is  equally  applicable  to  the  brute.  This 
identical  expression  is  employed  ten  times  in  the  book  of 
Genesis,  and  twice  in  Leviticus,  and  in  every  instance 
but  this,  it  is  used  with  reference  to  brute  animals ;  but 
this  fact  is  not  apparent  to  the  unlearned  reader,  because 
our  translators  have  only  in  this  instance  rendered  it 


128  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  IL 

/ 

"living  soul."     In  all  the  other  instances  when  the  lower 
animals  are  characterized  by  this  phrase,  they  have  ren- 
dered it  "  living  creature,"  or  "  living  thing  "  or  "  life  " ! 
On  this  passage  Rev.  J.  Pye  Smith  says : 

"  Some  of  our  readers  may  be  surprised  at  our  having 
translated  nephesh  chaiyah  by  "living  animal."  There 
are  good  interpreters  and  preachers,  who,  confiding  in 
the  common  translation  "  living  soul,"  hav^e  maintained 
that  hero  is  intimated  the  distinctive  pre-eminence  of 
man  above  the  inferior  animals,  as  possessed  of  an  imma- 
terial and  immortal  spirit.  .  .  .  We  should  be  acting 
unfaithfully  if  we  were  to  afiirm  its  being  contained  or 
implied  in  this  passage." 

Dean  Alford  in  his  comment  on  it  says  : 

"The  description  is  not  one  bringing  out  any  distinc- 
tive attribute  of  man,  but  simply  one  describing  the  ani- 
mation of  the  form  shaped  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth, 
whereby  he  became  what,  in  Chapter  I.,  the  various 
tribes  of  created  things  are  described  as  being,  a  living 
being.  The  difference,  whatever  it  may  be  between  him 
and  other  living  creatures,   is  not  declared  in  this  term." 

In  Dr.  Lange's  commentary  under  1  Cor.  15 :  45,  it 
is  said: 

"  The  expression  *  living  soul,'  as  used  in  Gen.,  is 
often  taken  to  indicate  an  order  of  being  superior  to  the 
brute,  and  is  the  text  of  many  an  argument  to  prove 
the  immortality  of  the  soul.  The  incorrectness  of  this 
assumption  will  be  readily  seen  by  referring  to  Gen. 
1 :  20,  21,  24,  and  elsewhere,  in  which  passages  the 
words  translated  '  living  soul '  are  applied  also  to  the 
entire  lower  creation.  They  are  used  indifferently  of 
man  and  beast  to  express  animal  life  in  general.  And  it 
is  in  this  very  light  the  Apostle  uses  them,  as  the  course 
of  his  argument  shows.  Adam  is  spoken  of  as  a  living 
soul,  not  to  prove  his  immortality,  but  rather  his  mor- 
tality." 

6.  Observe,  God  does  not  bring  a  living  soul  and  put 
it  into  this  lifeless  body,  nor  does  He  even  make  a  living 


Chap.  VII.]  THE    CREATION   OF   MAN.  129 

soul  within  his  body  as  something  distinct  from  it; 
but  by  the  impartation  of  this  breath  of  life,  Adam 
BECOMES  a  living  soul.  This  describes  the  whole  man  a» 
one  integer.* 

On  this  point  Milton  in  his  Treatise  on  Christian  Doo 
trine^  Vol.  I.,  page  250,  well  remarks : 

"It  may  be  inferred,  unless  we  had  rather  take  the 
heathen  writers  for  our  teachers  respecting  the  nature  of 
the  soul,  that  man  is  a  living  being  intrinsically  and  prop- 
erly one  and  individual  not  compounded  or  separable, 
not — according  to  the  common  opinion — made  up  and 
formed  of  two  distinct  and  separate  natures  as  of  soul 
and  body ;  but  that  the  whole  man  is  soul,  and  the  soul 
man ;  that  is  to  say,  a  body  or  substance,  individual,  an- 
imated, sensitive  and  rational ;  and  that  the  breath  of  life 
was  neither  a  part  of  the  Divine  essence,  nor  the  soul 
itself,  but  as  it  were,  the  inspiration  of  some  Divine 
virtue  fitted  for  the  exercise  of  life  and  reason,  and  in- 
fused into  the  organic  body ;  for  man  himself,  the  whole 
man,  when  finally  created,  is  called  in  express  terms,  '  a 
living  soul.'  Hence  the  word  used  in  Gen.  to  signify 
soul  is  interpreted  by  the  Apostle,  1  Cor.  15 :  45,  animal^ 

The  metaphysical  sense  in  which  this  word  soul  is  now 
used  to  describe  a  spiritual  essence  distinct  from  the 
body,  is  utterly  unknown  to  the  Scriptures,  as  we  have 
before  remarked.  It  is  derived  from  our  "heathen 
teachers,"  as  Milton  well  says,  and  not  from  the  inspired 
writers  of  the  Scriptures.  This  Hebrew  word  nephesh 
(with  its  Greek  equivalent  psuche  and  its  Latin  repre- 
sentative anima^  from  which  our  word  animal  comes), 
denotes  animal  life  or  animal  breath  in  contradistinction 
to  that  higher  life,  of  which  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
speak  hereafter,  which  is  given  in  the  new  birth ;  and 

*The  reader  is  referred  to  the  author's  Essay  on  the  JJnity  of 
Man,  in  his  larger  volume  The  Life  Everlasting,  for  a  full  dis- 
cussion of  this  question. 
6* 


130  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

then,  by  metonymy,  the  animal  itself,  whether  man  or 
beast,  that  lives  by  breathing;  it  includes  the  whole 
l^erson,  as  does  the  personal  pronoun  for  which  it  is 
often  used.  When  qualified  by  the  adjective  limng^ 
that  person  is  "  a  living  soul "  or  person,  and  when  qual- 
ified by  the  adjective  dead^  as  it  is  at  least  half  a  dozen 
times  in  the  Scriptures,  that  person  is  "  a  dead  soul." 
Here  it  should  be  observed  that  the  word  soul  in  Eng- 
lish, under  the  influence  of  this  heathen  teaching,  has 
come  to  be  understood  as  nearly,  if  not  quite,  synony- 
mous with  spirit.  The  two  words  are  so  defined  in  our 
dictionaries.  But  in  the  Scriptures  they  are  quite  dis- 
tinct. The  Hebrew  words  neshamah  and  ruach  and  the 
Greek  word  pneuma^  meaning  that  vital  air  or  breath 
which  gives  life,  are  never  used  interchangeably  with 
the  words  nephesh  and  psuche.*  They  are  as  distinct  as 
the  cause  is  from  the  effect.  It  is  the  inbreathing  of  this 
vital  breath  that  causes  the  lifeless  body  to  become  a 
living  soul.  And  then  the  heart  begins  to  beat,  the 
blood  to  circulate,  and  all  the  processes  of  sensitive,  in- 
telligent, voluntary  life  spring  into  action. 

6.  Now  let  this  process  be  reversed.  Let  this  life- 
giving  breath  be  withdrawn;  the  heart  ceases  to  beat; 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  sto23ped,  and  all  the  proc- 
esses of  sensitive,  intelligent,  voluntary  action  are  at  an 
end  ;  and  the  organism  itself  begins  at  once  to  fall  into 
ruin,  and  the  body  to  return  to  the  dust  from  which  it 
came.  This  is  death.  This  is  just  what  the  Scriptures 
say. 

"Thou  sendest  forth  thy  spirit  (rMac/i=breath)  they  are 
created;  Thou  takest  away  their  breath  (the  same  word,  ruach) 
they  die  and  return  to  the  dust."    Ps.  104. 

*  The  writer  has  discussed  this  subject  of  soul  and  spirit  and 
the  difference  between  them,  fully  in  his  volume  The  Life  Ever- 
lasting,  to  which  he  refers  the  reader. 


Chap.  VII.]  THE   CREATIOI!?'   OF   MAN".  131 

"  His  breath  (ruacJi)  goeth  forth;  he  retumeth  to  the  earth; 
in  that  very  day  his  thoughts  perish.''    Ps.  146. 

"For  that  which  befalleth  the  sons  of  men,  befalleth  beasts; 
even  one  thing  befalleth  them;  as  the  one  dieth,  so  dieth  the 
other;  yea  they  all  have  one  breath  (ruach) ;  so  that  [in  this  re- 
spect] man  hath  no  pre-eminence  above  a  beast."     Ecc.  3:  19. 

Though  "  man  hath  no  pre-eminence  above  the  beasts," 
in  the  materials  of  which  he  is  composed,  nor  in  "  the 
breath  that  is  in  his  nostrils,"  nor  in  the  food  upon  which 
he  subsists,  nor  in  the  manner  of  his  propagation  and 
birth — after  the  creation  of  the  first  pair — nor  in  his  ex- 
emption from  the  death,  which  is  the  common  lot  of  all 
earthly  creatures;  yet  though  a  fallen,  mortal  creature, — 
having  failed  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  the  prize  of  im- 
mortality that  was  put  within  his  reach,  choosing  rather 
the  good  that  perishes — man  is  still  vastly  superior  to  the 
brute  in  the  capacity  to  know  what  he  has  lost  by  sin, 
and  in  the  unique  privilege  of  receiving  it  back  again  by 
the  mercy  of  God,  as  a  gift  of  grace  through  a  second 
Adam  and  a  second  birth — as  made  known  in  the  Gos- 
pel.— But  we  anticipate. 

The  essential  earthly  nature  of  man  is  made  evident 
by  the  name  which  was  given  to  him  by  his  Maker.  The 
name  "  Adam  "  is  not  a  personal  proper  name,  though 
we  apply  it  as  such  to  the  first  man,  because  he  has  no 
other  name.  But  it  designates  and  characterizes  the  whole 
race.  The  word  adam  means  "  the  earth-made  "  or,  a 
creature  made  of  red  (?)  earth.  Josephus  says :  "  This 
man  was  called  Adam,  which,  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  sig- 
nifies one  that  is  red,  because  he  was  formed  of  red  earth 
compounded  together.*     This  word  appears  in  the  very 

♦Etymologists  are  not  agreed  as  to  the  root  of  this  word. 
Some  derive  it  from  a  word  which  means  red,  or  of  a  ruddy 
complexion;  others  from  the  word  adamah,  which  means  earth; 
Josephus  seems  to  combine  both  meanings ;  others,  with  less 


132  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part   11. 

first  chapter  of  Genesis,  where  God's  purpose  to  make 
man  is  first  mentioned.  It  reads  in  our  Bible  "  And  God 
said  let  us  make  man,"  but  in  the  original  it  is,  "  And 
God  said  let  us  make  ad  am,"  and  so  throughout  the  Old 
Testament,  unless  the  first  man  is  especially  referred  to, 
the  word  "adam"  is  translated  man^  though  another 
word,  which  yet  more  emphatically  expresses  man's  tran- 
sitory nature  after  the  fall  is  frequently  employed,  which 
is  also  rendered  "  man " ;  that  is  enosh^  which  means 
mortal,  perishable.  One  of  the  most  common  expres- 
sions throughout  both  the  Old  and  the  New  Testaments 
to  designate  man  is  Flesh  ;  "  All  flesh  had  corrupted  its 
way"—"  The  end  of  all  flesh  is  come  ";  "  M\  flesh  shall 
perish  together  and  man  shall  turn  to  dust  again."  "  That 
which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh;  "  and  in  hundreds  of 
other  instances. 

Now  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that  if  man  had 
been  endowed  in  his  original  creation,  with  an  immortal 
spirit,  this  would  have  been  indicated  by  some  higher 
title  than  earth-made?  Would  not  the  title  Elohirriy 
gods,  super  human  beings,  with  which  the  Tempter  flat- 
tered our  first  parents,  have  been  more  exact?  But, 
according  to  the  philosophy  of  the  day,  this  is  material- 
ism.  It  is,  however,  Bible  teaching,  by  whatever  name 
it  may  be  called. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  the  woman — whose  formation 
out  of  the  side  of  the  man  we  have  not  yet  considered, 
and  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  upon, — receives 
this  title  Adam,  equally  with  the  man.     We   are   told 

reason,  think  it  is  derived  from  a  word  which  signifies  "  to 
build,"  "to  beget,"  " to  cultivate,"  etc.  But  as  it  is  almost 
identical  with  the  word  adainah,  "earth,"  "earthy,"  "of  the 
ground,"  this  is  generally  understood  to  be  its  root- meaning, 
and  so  we  understand  it. 


Chap.  VII.]  THE   CREATION   OF   MATfT,  183 

"  God  created  them  male  and  female,  and  blessed  them 
and  called  their  name  'Adam,'  in  the  day  when  He  cre- 
ated them."  Gen.  5:2.  It  was  the  man,  not  God,  who 
called  the  woman's  name  Eve,  "  because  she  was  the 
mother  of  all  living."  God  called  them  both  Adam,  not 
because  she  shared  his  name  as  the  wife  of  Adam,  as 
wives  now  share  their  husband's  name,  but  because  she 
shared  his  earthly  nature. 

Let  those  who  smile  incredulously  at  the  Scriptural 
account  of  the  creation  of  the  woman,  suggest,  if  they 
can,  a  more  plausible  or  significant  or  reasonable  method 
of  creation.  They  perhaps  forget  that,  if  created  at  all, 
the  first  pair  must  have  been  created  in  a  manner  that 
must  appear  to  us  abnormal  and  extraordinary.  They 
could  not  have  been  born  as  their  children  are.  They 
must  have  been  miraculously  formed.  No  method  could 
have  been  adopted  that  would  not  be  open  to  the  criti- 
cisms of  those  who  are  disposed  to  cavil.  After  the 
creation  of  the  first  man,  from  the  dust  of  the  ground, 
God's  method  of  forming  the  woman,  who  is  destined 
to  be  his  partner  for  life  and  a  help  meet  for  him,  ap- 
pears to  us,  the  more  we  consider  it,  a  conception  truly 
Divine  and  most  beautifully  significant  of  the  relation 
which  He  designed  to  subsist  between  the  husband  and 
wife. 

From  the  record,  the  first  pair  appear  to  have  entered 
upon  life  miraculously  formed,  in  the  full  perfection  of 
their  physical  nature — not  as  infants,  for  in  that  case 
they  would  have  been  helpless  and  quite  unable  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  But  in  their  mental  and  moral  na- 
tures, they  were  inexperienced,  unsophisticated,  and 
without  any  positive  character.  The  lofty  descriptions 
which  some  poetic  theologians  and  theological  poets  hav^e 
drawn  of  their  primitive  state,  before  the  fall,  are  mere 


134  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part   IL 

fancy  pictures  without  any  warrant  whatever  either  from 
reason  or  Scripture.  That  they  were  pure,  and  inno- 
cent and  guileless,  there  can  be  no  doubt ;  for  God  made 
them  80  at  the  outset.  But  character  is  a  growth.  It  is 
the  result  of  free  moral  action,  of  action  under  tempta- 
tion, where  there  is  a  conflict  of  motives,  and  the  will  is 
free  to  choose  between  them.  It  is  developed  only 
under  temptation,  and  cannot  be  given  by  creation. 

They  begin  their  life  in  a  world  where  change  is  the 
law  of  physical  and  material  things.  The  life  which 
animates  all  earthly  organisms  is  transitory;  they  be- 
gin in  weakness,  rise  more  -  or  less  rapidly  to  maturity 
and  then  go  down  again  through  feebleness  to  death,  and 
are  resolved  into  the  elements  of  which  they  were  com- 
posed. They  appear  for  a  little  time  and  then  vanish 
away,  to  give  place  for  others  that  are  alike  transitory 
in  their  nature.  There  is  nothing  in  the  physical  organ- 
ism of  this  first  pair — though  exquisitely  formed — to 
insure  them  against  the  common  lot  of  all  earthly  organ- 
isms. Indeed,  things  that  are  the  most  beautiful  are 
often  the  most  frail  and  perishable. 

But  there  is  within  them  a  capacity  for  a  higher,  bet- 
ter and  more  enduring  life  than  this  world  jiromises,  to 
which  they  may  hope  to  rise,  if  they  shall  prove  them- 
selves worthy  of  it.  They  are  placed  midway,  as  it 
were,  between  two  worlds.  With  their  feet  standing  on 
this  earth,  they  may  look  upward  to  the  heavenly  world 
above  them,  and  hold  communion  with  their  Maker,  and 
aspire  to  fellowship  with  the  holy  and  happy  spirits 
that  surround  His  throne  in  love.    So  the  Psalmist  sings  : 

"  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the  anojels  and  hast 
crowned  him  with  glory  and  honor.  Thou  madest  him  to  have 
dominion  over  the  works  of  Thy  hands.  Thou  hast  put  all 
(earthly)  things  under  his  feet;  all  sheep  and  oxen  and  the 
Deasts  of  the  field."    Ps.  8:  5. 


Chap.  VII.]        THE  crUation"  op  man.  135 

"Whether  they  shall  rise  to  this  higher  place,  and  be 
taken  into  companionship  with  the  angels,  and  be  made 
heirs  with  them  of  Eternal  Life;  or  whether  they  shall 
sink  to  the  plane  below,  and  take  their  lot  with  the 
beasts  that  perish,  depends  on  their  own  free  choice. 
Till  this  great  question  is  determined,  they  can  be  called 
neither  mortal  nor  immortal.  They  are  candidates  for 
immortality,  yet  liable  to  death. 

Theophilus,  bishop  of  Antioch,  «vho  wrote  in  the  lat- 
ter part  of  the  second  century,  before  the  Grecian  phi- 
losophy, which  was  beginning  to  find  its  way  into  the 
Christian  Church,  had  been  generally  accepted,  well  says  ; 

"  But  some  will  say.  Was  man  made  mortal  by  nature  ? 
By  no  means.  Immortal  ?  Nor  do  we  say  this.  If  im- 
mortal his  Maker  would  seem  to  have  made  him  a  god ; 
if  mortal,  God  would  seem  to  be  the  author  of  sin. 
Therefore  He  made  him  neither  mortal  nor  immortal, 
but  capable  of  both ;  so  that  if  he  advanced  to  the 
things  which  lead  to  Immortality,  he  might  receive  Im- 
mortality, and  become  godlike ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  should  turn  to  the  works  of  the  flesh,  he  would 
become  unto  himself  the  author  of  his  own  death." 

That  theyj,re  even  in  their  creation  liable  to  death, 
and  actually  exempt  from  it  only  so  long  as  they  are  free 
from  sin,  is  made  evident  by  the  provision  that  is  made 
for  the  preservation  of  their  lives.  A  Tree  of  Life  is 
provided,  of  which  they  may  freely  eat  so  long  as  they 
continue  loyal  and  obedient,  but  no  longer.  Immedi- 
ately after  their  fall-^as  we  shall  soon  see — this  privi- 
lege is  withdrawn,  and  they  are  debarred  all  access  to  it, 
and  why?  We  are  not  left  to  conjecture  the  reason; 
for  we  are   expressly  told :    "  Lest  he  put  forth  his 

HAND  AXD  TAKE  ALSO  OF  THE  TrEE  OP  LlPE  AND  EAT 

AND  LIVE  forever"!      As  wc   shall  have  occasion  to 
remark  further  on  this  remarkable  passage  in  the  next 


136  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

chapter  we  pass  it  for  the  present,  simply  obscTving  that 
it  establishes  beyond  all  reasonable  dispute  the  point  for 
which  we  are  contending — that  our  first  parents  were 
not  constituted  immortal  in  their  creation,  and  that  all 
the  life  they  had  in  their  innocency  was  conditioned  on 
their  continued  obedience,  and  even  in  that  case,  was 
dependent  on  their  free  access  to  the  Tree  of  Life  for 
its  maintenance.  To  call  such  a  life  an  immortal  life  is 
neither  according  to  reason  nor  Scripture — but  contrary 
to  both.  And  yet  on  this  question  there  appears  to  be 
more  confusion  of  thought,  and  illogical  reasoning  and 
unscriptural  dogmatism  in  our  religious  literature  than 
on  any  other.  We  take  as  a  specimen,  the  following 
jumble  of  trutli  and  fiction  from  CalmeVs  Dictionary. 

"  Immortality,  in  an  absolute  sense  belongs  to  God  only. 
[True.]  He  cannot  die  ;  angels  are  immortal,  but  God 
who  made  them  can  terminate  their  being.  [True  again.] 
Man  is  immortal  in  part ;  that  is,  in  his  spirit,  but  his 
body  dies.  [Who  taught  the  author  this  doctrine  ?  surely 
he  did  not  get  it  from  the  Bible.  God  said  "  Thou  shalt 
surely  die  " — not  thy  body,  but  thou  thyself.  It  is  what 
that  other  personage  said,  that  our  author  is  here  endors- 
ing.] Inferior  creatures  are  not  immortal  ;  they  die 
wholly.  Thus  the  principle  of  immortality  is  differently 
communicated,  according  to  the  will  of  the  Communica- 
tor, who  can  render  any  creature  immortal  by  prolonging 
his  life ;  can  confer  immortality  on  the  body  of  man  to- 
gether with  his  soul,  and  who  maintains  angels  in  immor- 
tality by  maintaining  them  in  holiness.  Holiness  is  the 
root  of  immortality — [True  as  the  Bible.]  But  God 
only  is  absolutely  holy,  as  God  only  is  absolutely  immortal. 
All  imperfection  is  a  drawback  [Sic]  on  the  principle  of 
immortality ;  only  God  is  absolutely  perfect,  therefore 
only  God  is  absolutely  immortal." 

The  author  seems  to  be  bewildered  by  his  psychologi- 
cal notions.  He  has  glimpses  of  the  truth,  but  he  does 
not  venture  to  carry  out  the  doctrine  he  asserts.     If  ho- 


Chap.  YII.]  THE   CREATION   OP   MAN.  137 


DO. 


liness  is  the  "root"  of  immortality,  what  becomes  of 
immortality  when  the  root  is  wanting?  If  God,  as  he 
says,  "  maintains  angels  in  immortality  by  maintaining 

em  in  holiness,"  does  He  not  maintain  saints  in  immor- 
ality in  the  same  way  ?  No  doubt  He  does,  for  this  is 
just  what  He  says.  What  then  becomes  of  the  evil 
angels  and  reprobate  sinners  ?  How  are  they  maintained 
n  immortality  ?     What  he  means  by  "  all  imperfection  is 

drawback  on  the  principle  of  immortality,"  we  cannot 
guess,  unless  it  be,  that  the  imperfect  and  the  wicked  are 
not  quite  so  immortal  as  the  perfect !  I  But  is  immortality 
a  thing  of  degrees  ?  Can  one  creature  be  more  immortal 
than  another  and  yet  both  be  immortal  ?  Or  does  he 
mean  that  it  is  more  difficult  for  God  to  make  wicked  and 
imperfect  creatures  immortal,  but  still  He  will  do  it? 
Why  not  say  as  God's  Word  says,  that  holiness  is  essen- 
tial to  the  immortality  of  all  of  God's  creatures  whether 
angels  or  men,  and  failing  of  this,  they  cannot  have 
immortality — they  must  die — not  partly,  but  wholly  and 
forever. 

Dr.  Hodge,  in  his  Systematic  Theology,  Yol.  II.,  Chap. 
6,  says : 

"The  reward  promised  to  Adam,  on  condition  of 
obedience,  was  Life.  This  included  the  happy,  holy^ 
immortal  existence  of  the  soul  and  body.  The  death 
threatened  was  the  opposite  of  the  life  promised.  But 
the  life  promised,  as  we  have  seen,  includes  all  that  is 
involved  in  the  happy,  holy,  immortal  existence  of  the 
soul  and  body;  and  therefore  death  must  include  not 
only  all  the  miseries  of  this  life  and  the  dissolution  of  the 
body,  but  also  all  that  is  meant  by  spiritual  and  eternal 
death, — God  is  the  life  of  the  soul.  His  favor,  and  fel- 
lowship with  Him  are  essential  to  its  holiness  and  hap- 
piness [and  why  not  to  its  life  ?]  If  His  favor  be  for- 
feited, the  inevitable  consequences  are  the  death  of  the 
soul,  i.  e.,  its  loss  of  spiritual  life  and  unending  sinful- 
ness and  misery ! " 


138  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

But  surely  unending  sin  and  misery  are  not  the 
"  opposite "  of  a  happy,  holy,  immortal  existence. 
Nothing  but  actual  death  is  the  "  opposite "  of  life. 
How  evidently  the  author  slips  away  from  his  premises 
to  save  his  dogma  of  the  deathless  nature  of  the  soul  ? 

But  this  part  of  the  subject  belongs  to  another  place  ; 
and  we  proceed  to  consider  in  the  next  chapter,  The 
Genesis  of  Sin  and  Death, 


CHAPTER  YTII. 

The  Genesis  of  Sin  and  Death. 

We  have  seen  how  the  first  pair  of  our  race  had  their 
genesis  on  this  earth,  and  from,  the  earth,  like  all  animal 
creatures,  though  the  last  made  and  highest  of  them  all, 
they  were  like  them  essentially  earthly,  as  the  name 
Adam — earth-made,  which  their  Creator  Himself  gave 
them,  plainly  shows.  They  were  of  the  same  physical 
organization,  made  of  the  same  materials,  and  designed 
to  breathe  the  same  air,  to  subsist  on  the  same  food,  to 
come  into  life  by  successive  generations  in  the  same  way; 
but  not  necessarily  to  go  out  of  it  in  the  same  way  by 
death  ;  for  they  had  the  offer  of  a  higher  life,  which  is 
pure  and  deathless.  But  that  they  were  liable  to  death, 
is  manifest  from  the  extraordinary  provision  in  the  Tree 
of  Life,  to  secure  them  against  it.  They  are  candidates 
for  that  higher  life,  but  not  yet  matriculated  into  it. 
Their  character  is  yet  inchoate  and  undecided.  They 
must  first  go  through  a  probation  to  prove  that  they  are 
worthy,  or  fit  for  the  immortality  which  is  the  lot  only 
of  those  higher  intelligences  that  are  confirmed  in  holi- 
ness and  loyalty  to  their  Maker.  If  they  shall  recognize 
the  claims  of  their  Maker  to  their  love  and  confidence, 
and  give  to  their  higher  faculties  the  supremacy  that 
rightfully  belongs  to  them,  they  will  prove  themselves 
worthy  of  the  boon  that  is  offered  to  them,  and  capable 
of  enjoying  it.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  shall 
turn  away  from  Him  who  is  the  Supreme  Source  of  all 

139 


138  THE    UXSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   11. 

But  surely  unending  sin  and  misery  are  not  the 
"  opposite "  of  a  happy,  holy,  immortal  existence. 
Nothing  but  actual  death  is  the  "  ojoposite "  of  life. 
How  evidently  the  author  slips  away  from  his  premises 
to  save  his  dogma  of  the  deathless  nature  of  the  soul  ? 

But  this  part  of  the  subject  belongs  to  another  place  ; 
and  we  proceed  to  consider  in  the  next  chapter,  The 
Genesis  of  Sin  and  Death. 


CHAPTER  VTII. 

The  Genesis  of  Sin  and  Death. 

We  have  seen  how  the  first  pair  of  our  race  had  their 
genesis  on  this  earth,  and  from  the  earth,  like  all  animal 
creatures,  though  the  last  made  and  highest  of  them  all, 
they  were  like  them  essentially  earthly,  as  the  name 
Adam — earth-made,  which  their  Creator  Himself  gave 
them,  plainly  shows.  They  were  of  the  same  physical 
organization,  made  of  the  same  materials,  and  designed 
to  breathe  the  same  air,  to  subsist  on  the  same  food,  to 
come  into  life  by  successive  generations  in  the  same  way; 
but  not  necessarily  to  go  out  of  it  in  the  same  way  by 
death  ;  for  they  had  the  offer  of  a  higher  life,  which  is 
pure  and  deathless.  But  that  they  were  liable  to  death, 
is  manifest  from  the  extraordinary  provision  in  the  Tree 
of  Life,  to  secure  them  against  it.  They  are  candidates 
for  that  higher  life,  but  not  yet  matriculated  into  it. 
Their  character  is  yet  inchoate  and  undecided.  They 
must  first  go  through  a  probation  to  prove  that  they  are 
worthy,  or  fit  for  the  immortality  which  is  the  lot  only 
of  those  higher  intelligences  that  are  confirmed  in  holi- 
ness and  loyalty  to  their  Maker.  If  they  shall  recognize 
the  claims  of  their  Maker  to  their  love  and  confidence, 
and  give  to  their  higher  faculties  the  supremacy  that 
rightfully  belongs  to  them,  they  will  prove  themselves 
worthy  of  the  boon  that  is  offered  to  them,  and  capable 
of  enjoying  it.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  shall 
turn  away  from  Him  who  is  the  Supreme  Source  of  all 

139 


140  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

life  and  blessedness,  and  seek  their  chief  good  in  the 
things  of  time  and  sense,  and  in  the  gratification  of  their 
animal  and  earthly  natures,  then  they  must  lose  their 
right  to  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  share  the  perishable  lot  of 
all  earthly  creatures  and  things. 

How  shall  they  be  proved?  It  is  evident  that  the 
test  of  their  loyalty  must  be  one  that  is  adapted  to  their 
condition.  A  moment's  reflection  will  show  us,  that 
very  few,  if  any  one  of  the  prohibitions  of  the  Deca- 
logue as  afterwards  given,  would  be  applicable  to  their 
case.  Those  who  smile  at  the  simj^licity  of  the  test  pro- 
vided, seem  not  to  consider  this.  To  us,  its  chief  excel- 
lence appears  in  its  simplicity.  It  must  be  an  objective 
test,  and  one  that  appeals  to  their  sensitive  nature.  It 
must  be  one  that  j^ossesses  some  attraction,  and  which 
will  require  the  exercise  of  their  faith  in  God,  and  their 
sense  of  obligation  to  Him,  and  yet  one  that  is  not  over- 
powering in  its  nature. 

Here,  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  close  by  the  Tree  of 
Life,  stands  a  tree  the  fruit  of  which  they  are  forbidden 
to  eat.  Of  the  fruit  of  all  the  other  trees  they  may 
freely  partake ;  but  they  are  held  back  from  the  exer- 
cise of  perfect  liberty  at  this  one  point,  or,  as  it  were, 
by  one  cord.  Shall  this  cord  be  severed  that  they  may 
be  perfectly  independent  of  their  Maker  ?  The  fruit  of 
this  tree  is  "  pleasant  to  the  eyes,"  and  appears  to  be 
"good  for  food,"  and  in  addition  to  all  this,  it  possesses 
that  mysterious  attraction  which  all  forbidden  objects 
have — something  "  to  be  desired  to  make  one  wise  " — 
to  give  some  knowledge  or  new  ex23erience  which  is 
withheld.  But  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  the  claims 
of  God,  and  the  fearful  penalty  of  disobedience. 

Balancing  between  these  conflicting  motives,  the  grat- 
ification  of  their  sensitive  natures,  with   a  desire  for 


Chap,  yill.]    THE    GEI3-ESIS   OP   SIN    AND   DEATH.  141 

perfect  freedom  from  superior  control,  and  a  thirst  for 
that  mysterious  knowledge  which  they  can  only  have  by 
disobedience,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  on  the  other,  a  sense 
of  loyalty  to  God  and  the  fear  of  the  consequences  of 
His  displeasure,  the  Tempter  now  addresses  himself 
to  them,  and  plies  his  arts  of  persuasion,  with  how 
much  success  we  know  too  well.  That  this  Tempter 
was  Satan  is  evident  from  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures 
elsewhere.  The  "  old  Serpent,"  is  one  of  the  principal 
titles  given  to  him.  We  are  told  that  he  was  a  Deceiver, 
a  Liar,  a  Murderer  ymitkropoktonos  mankiller)  from  the 
beginning  (see  John  8:44,  Rev.  20:2,  etc.)  What  a 
change  the  curse  of  God  may  have  wrought  upon  this 
animal,  or  whether  there  was  anything  supernatural  at 
that  thne — as  there  certainly  would  be  now — in  the  em- 
ployment of  this  agency  to  address  the  woman,  we  know 
not,  and  will  forbear  to  guess.*  But  in  any  case,  we 
need  not  suppose  that  either  she  or  her  husband  in  their 
inexperience,  felt  any  surprise  at  being  addressed  in  this 
manner.  Like  children,  whose  credulity  is  boundless, 
and  to  whom  nothing  seems  miraculous,  till  observation 
and  experience  have  taught  them  what  are  the  laws  and 
processes  of  nature,  they  listened  without  fear  or  surprise 
to  his  suggestions  and  flatteries.  That  they  should  have 
trusted  their  Maker,  believed  His  Word,  and  held  fast 
their  allegiance,  in  spite  of  all  the  seductions  of  the 
Tempter,  and  their  own  natural  desires  for  self-gratifica- 

*  There  is  no  appearance  of  limbs  externally  in  the  body  of 
the  serpent;  but  naturalists  say,  that  under  the  skin  of  some 
serpents,  at  least,  there  are  what  seem  to  be  inchoate  limbs  or 
wings,  tliat  have  been  arrested  in  their  development.  This 
fact,  if  it  be  so,  taken  in  connection  with  the  curse,  "  Upon  thy 
belly  shalt  thou  go,  and  dust  shalt  thou  eat  all  the  days  of  thy 
life,"  is  certainly  suggestive  of  what  the  animal  once  was 
might  have  been  but  for  this  curse.  •*^® 


144  THE    UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

covered  it  up,  and  concealed  it  by  an  enigmatical  expres- 
sion, only  to  be  revealed  after  the  offence  had  been  com- 
mitted, ought  not — cannot  be  credited  by  any  one  who 
duly  honors  the  truth  and  justice  of  God,  to  say  nothing  of 
His  goodness  and  mercy.  And  furthermore,  what  shall 
we  say  of  the  doctrine,  that  they  incurred,  at  the  same 
time,  this  same  unutterable  doom  of  endless  misery,  not 
only  for  themselves,  but  for  all  their  infant  posterity,  to 
the  end  of  the  world  ! !  And  yet,  this  is  the  sophisticated 
theology  which  Augustine,  and  his  associates  and  succes- 
sors, have  formulated  for  us,  and  handed  down  to  us  from 
generation  to  generation,  as  the  true  orthodox  system  of 
the  Christian  Church.  In  proof  of  this  assertion  we  may 
refer  to  any  of  our  traditional  creeds  or  catechisms  or  sys- 
tems of  theology.  It  will  suffice  to  quote  the  following 
from  Cruden's  Concordanee  under  the  word  "  death." 

"  Death  signifies  (1)  The  separation  of  the  soul  from 
the  body.  This  is  Temporal  death.  (2)  A  separation 
of  soul  and  body  from  God's  favor,  in  this  life, 
which  is  the  state  of  all  unregenerated  and  unre- 
newed persons  who  are  without  the  light  of  knowledge 
and  the  quickening  power  of  grace.  This  is  Spiritual 
death.  (3)  The  perpetual  separation  of  the  whole  man 
from  God's  heavenly  presence  and  glory,  to  be  tormented 
forever  with  the  devil  and  his  angels.  This  is  the  sec- 
ond death  or  Eternal  death.  To  all  these  kinds  of  death 
Adam  made  himself  and  his  posterity  liable  by  trans- 
gressing the  commandment  of  God  by  eating  the  forbid- 
den fruit. 

"VYe  are  bold  to  say  that  there  is  not  one  word  or  hint, 
or  shadow  of  a  hint,  in  all  the  Bible  to  justify  such  a  mon- 
strous scheme  of  doctrine.  It  is  sheer  scholasticism, — and 
that  too,  of  the  worst  sort.  It  was  evidently  fabricated 
to  bring  the  Word  of  God,  which  positively  declares  that 
death  is  the  penalty  of  sin,  into   a  seeming   accordance 


Ohap.  VIII.]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN   AND    DEATH.  145 

TT-ith  a  philosophy  that  declares  that  man  wiU  not,  cannot 
actually  die. 

That  our  first  parents  could  not  possibly  have  under- 
stood any  such  threefold  doom  as  involved  in  this  one 
word,  is  quite  evident.  That  no  such  doom  was  intended 
by  God  will  be  equally  evident  when  we  come  to  listen  to 
the  sentence  of  condemnation  which  He  pronounces 
upon  them. 

"  And  the  Lord  God  said  unto  the  serpent,  Because  thou  hast 
done  this,  thou  art  cursed  above  all  cattle  and  above  every 
beast  of  the  field,  upon  thy  belly  slialt  thou  ^o,  and  dust  shalt 
thou  eat  all  the  days  of  thy  life.  And  I  will  put  enmity  be- 
tween thee  and  the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed. 
It  shall  bruise  thy  head  and  thou  shalt  bruise  his  henl. 

"And  unto  the  woman  he  said:  I  will  greatly  multiply  thy 
sorrow,  and  thy  conception ;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  bring  forth 
children ;  and  thy  desire  shall  be  to  thy  husband,  and  he  shall 
rule  over  thee. 

"  And  unto  Adam  he  said.  Because  thou  hast  hearkened  unto 
the  voice  of  thy  wife,  and  hast  eaten  of  the  tree  of  which  I 
commanded  thee  saying,  Thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it,  cursed  is  the 
ground  for  thy  sake;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  eat  of  i^all  the  days 
of  thy  life.  Thorns  and  thistles  shall  it  bring  forth  to  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  eat  the  herb  of  the  field.  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
shalt  thou  eat  bread  till  ihou  return  unto  the  ground,  for  out  of  it 
wast  thou  taken;  for  dust  thou  art  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return.^* 

Of  the  many  interesting  points  suggested  by  this  pas- 
,ge,  we  can  notice,  and  this  but  briefly,  only  these  three  : 
1.  We  have  God's  own  interpretation  of  what  He 
meant  by  the  words :  "  In  the  day  that  thou  eatest  there- 
of thou  shalt  surely  die."  They  lost  at  once  and  forever 
the  claim  to  immortality  in  themselves,  and  all  hope  of 
exemption  from  the  common  lot  of  earthly  creatures. 
They  fell  immediately  under  the  sentence  of  death.  The 
struggle  between  themselves  and  the  great  monster  from 
this  moment  began,  which  would  inevitably  be  one  of 
7 


146  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

sorrow  and  pain,  and  however  long  it  should  continue, 
would  surely  end  in  their  falling  under  His  power,  and 
returning  to  the  dust  from  which  they  came. 

Adam  Clark  says,  in  his  Commentary,  it  means :  "  From 
that  moment,  thou  shalt  become  mortal,  and  shalt  continue 
in  a  dying  state  till  thou  die.  This  we  find  literally  accom- 
plished ;  every  moment  of  his  life,  he  may  be  considered  as 
dying  till  his  soul  and  body  are  separated  [Death  means 
more  than  a  separation  of  soul  and  body ;  it  means  a  ces- 
sation of  life].  Other  meanings  have  been  given  to  this 
passage  but  they  are  in  general  either  fanciful  or  incorrect." 
So  Dean  Alf ord  also  says  in  loco :  "  A  man  may,  as  we 
say,  die  by  inches,  and  may  be  said — if  passing  from  a  state 
where  death  was  not  the  necessary  end  of  his  days — to 
die,  when  the  seeds  of  death  begin  to  work  in  him.  It  is 
not  sufficiently  borne  in  mind,  that  man's  exclusion  from 
the  Tree  of  Life,  which  could  have  conferred  immortality 
on  him,  was  the  carrying  out  of  this  sentence.'^''  Isaao 
Watts  in  his  Uuin  and  Recovery  of  Mankind  (Question 
XI.)  says :  "Who  can  say  whether  the  word  death  might 
not  be  fairly  construed  to  extend  to  the  utter  destruction 
of  the  life  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the  body?  For  man, 
by  sin  had  forfeited  all  that  God  had  given  him,  that  is, 
the  life  and  existence  of  his  soul  as  well  as  his  body ;  and 
why  might  not  the  threatening  declare  the  right  that  even 
a  God  of  goodness  had  to  resume  all  back  again,  and  ut- 
terly destroy  and  annihilate  His  creatures  forever  ?  There 
is  not  one  place  of  Scripture  that  occurs  to  me,  where  the 
word  '  death '  as  it  was  first  threatened  in  the  law  of  inno- 
cency,  necessarily  signifies  a  certain  miserable  immortality 
of  the  soul,  either  to  Adam  the  actual  sinner  or  to  his 
posterity."  That  literal  death  is  what  was  meant,  and  all 
that  was  meant  by  the  words  "  surely  die^"*  is  further  evi- 
dent when  we  are  told,  as  in  Gen.  5 :  5,  that  he  did  '•'•die ' 


Chap.  VIII.]  THE  genesis  of  sin  and  death.  147 

as  God  had  said.  The  same  word  (iniith)  is  used  in  both 
places.  It  is  quite  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  it  has  two 
different  meanings  in  these  two  cases. 

2.  But  there  are  those  who  object  to  this  interpreta- 
tion, because  the  full  execution  of  the  sentence  of  death 
IS  postponed.  It  is  said,  "  Jn  the  day  that  thou  eatest 
thereof  thou  shalt  surely  die."  The  cumbrous  theory  of 
three  sorts  of  deaths, — two  of  which  are  not  death  at 
all,  but  so  called  to  give  plausibility  to  the  theory, — rests 
mainly  on  an  arbitrary  construction  of  this  adverbial 
clause.  But  any  one  may  see  by  referring  to  his  Concor- 
dance, that  the  phrases,  "  to  day,"  "  this  day,"  "  in  the 
day  of,"  etc.,  are  not  only  used  with  gi*eat  frequency  in 
the  Scriptures,  but  that  they  do  not  usually  refer  to  a 
specific  astronomical  day  of  twenty-four  hours.  They 
are  used  to  certify  or  emphasize  a  declaration,  to  give 
it  an  objective  certainty.  In  this  very  account  of  the 
creation,  the  word  "  day "  is  evidently  used  in  a  very 
broad  sense,  to  designate  a  period  of  time,  more  or  less 
extended.  It  is  not  generally  supposed  that  the  first  six 
days  of  creation  were  literal  days  of  twenty-four  hours 
each.  It  certainly  has  a  broader  sense  in  the  following 
passage.  Gen.  2:4:  "  These  are  the  generations  of  the 
heavens  and  of  the  earth  when  they  were  created,  in  the 
day  that  the  Lord  God  made  the  earth  and  the  heavens." 

But  we  have  no  occasion  to  insist  on  giving  au  y  other 
than  the  strictest  literal  interpretation  to  this  phrase  ;  for 
we  cannot  doubt  that  their  forfeited  lives  would  have 
been  at  once  taken,  and  the  inchoate  race  of  man  on 
earth  brought  to  an  end,  in  its  first  representatives,  had  it 
not  been  for  God's  purpose  to  redeem  man  from  death  by 
a  Divine  Saviour,  and  to  offer  him  another  life — by  a  res- 
urrection from  the  dead, — an  Eternal  Life  beyond  aU 
possible  contingency  of  forfeiture   by   a   Second   Adam 


148  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

from  heaven.  Hence  the  execution  of  the  sentence  was 
suspended — not  annulled — and  they  were  permitted  to 
live  for  a  time, — as  we  all  now  are,  after  having  forfeited 
our  lives  by  sin,  and  fallen  under  the  same  sentence — that 
they  might  come  under  this  system  of  recovering  grace. 
And  may  we  not  hope,  that  this  long  rej^rieve  was  not  in 
vain  even  in  their  case;  and  that  though  God's  truth 
must  be  justified  in  their  death,  as  in  ours,  they  died,  at 
last,  in  the  hope  of  a  better  resurrection;  and  that 
when  they  shall  rise  again  "from  the  dust  of  the 
ground,"  at  the  coming  of  their  Redeemer,  with  all  their 
children,  it  will  be  with  bodies  not  earth-made,  but  spirit- 
ual, and  incorruptible,  like  unto  His  own  glorious  body, 
to  enter  with  the  innumerable  company  of  the  redeemed 
upon  that  new  life,  a  higher  and  better  life  that  shall 
never  end  in  the  Paradise  of  God? 

3.  It  is  commonly  said,  that  God  pronounced  a  curse 
upon  our  first  parents  and  their  posterity.  But  we  do  not 
find  it  in  the  record.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  intima- 
tions of  mercy  even  in  the  announcement  of  their  doom. 
He  cursed  the  ground  for  their  sake,  so  as  to  render  it  more 
difficult  of  cultivation^  and  require  toil  and  sweat  to  se- 
cure its  fruits.  He  foretold  also  the  peculiar  hardships 
and  pains  of  the  woman.  He  did  curse  most  emphati- 
cally the  agent  in  the  accomplishing  their  ruin,  and  in 
him  the  Great  Deceiver  himself;  but  in  that  curse  He 
gave  intimations  of  mercy,  toward  the  dupes  of  his 
malice.  They  may  not  have  understood  all  that  was 
meant  by  that  mysterious  promise,  that  the  seed  of  the 
woman  should  crush  the  serpent's  head,  but  it  is  evident 
from  the  sequel  that  it  was  pregnant  with  hope  even  to 
them.  To  us,  who  read  it  in  the  light  of  the  Gospel,  it 
gives  an  assurance  of  the  issue  of  the  conflict  which  he 
had  provoked,  in  the  complete  destruction  of  this  great 


Chap.  VIII.]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN    AND   DEATH.  149 

enemy  of  God  and  men,  by  one  of  her  own  children  in 
the  flesh,  but  invested  with  Almighty  power. 

One  point  more  remains  to  be  noticed  in  this  connec- 
tion which  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  this  question  of 
immortality  in  sin,  from  our  point  of  view,  and  which 
would  seem  to  confirm,  beyond  the  possibility  of  dispute, 
the  truth  for  which  we  are  contending, — ^but  which  is,  and 
ever  must  be,  full  of  darkness  and  mystery  to  those  who 
take  the  opposite  view.  They  are  at  once  driven  from 
this  earthly  Paradise,  and  debarred  all  access  to  the  Tree 
of  Life,  by  means  of  which  their  lives  were  to  have  been 
perpetuated,  had  they  not  sinned, — or  which,  as  some  think, 
had  been  given  them  as  a  pledge  of  its  perpetuation, — ^it 
matters  not  which, — this  one  point  is  evident :  All  possibil- 
ity or  hope  of  immortality  in  sin  was  now  taken  away 
from  them.  "  And  cherubim  and  a  flaming  sword,  which 
turned  every  way  to  keep  the  Tree  of  Life,"  were  placed 
at  the  eastern  entrance  to  the  garden.  And  for  this 
express  purpose,  as  the  Scripture  informs  us,  "  lest  he 
(the  man  and  woman  adam)  put  forth  his  hand  and  take 
also  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  eat  and  Live  forever." 

This  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  superadded  curse,  but 
as  a  signal  act  of  Divine  mercy.  For  what  could  have 
been  more  awful  or  more  cruel  in  their  Maker,  than  to 
have  perpetuated  their  forfeited  lives  forever  and  ever, 
in  sin  and  misery !  And  yet  this  is  the  very  doctrine  our 
sophisticated  theology  teaches.  Milton,  who  holds  with 
us  in  his  Paradise  Lost,  represents  God  as  saying : 

"  I  at  first  with  two  fair  gifts 
Created  him  endowed — with  happiness 
And  immortality;  that  fondly  lost, 
This  other  served  but  to  eternize  woe, 
Till  I  provided  death." 


150  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

So  also  Prof.  Stanley  Leathes,  in  Smith's  Bible  Dic- 
tionary, says ;  as  every  thoughtful  scholar  who  is  nob 
utterly  blinded  by  his  philosophy  must  say : 

"  Though  the  curse  of  Adam's  rebellion,  of  necessity, 
fell  upon  him,  yet  the  very  prohibition  to  eat  of  the  Tree 
of  Life,  after  his  transgression,  was  probably  a  manifesta- 
tion of  Divine  mercy,  because  the  greatest  malediction 
of  all,  would  have  been  to  have  the  gift  of  indestructible 
life  superadded  to  a  state  of  wretchedness  and  sin." 

Irena3us,  who  wrote  in  the  Second  century  also  says : 
"  The  Lord  drove  man  out  of  Paradise  and  removed  him 
from  the  Tree  of  Life,  because  He  pitied  him,  and  did 
not  desire  that  he  should  continue  a  sinner  forever,  nor 
that  the  sin  that  surrounded  him  should  be  iinmortal^  an 
evil  interminable^'' 

But  let  it  be  observed,  this  Tree  of  Life  is  not  de- 
stroyed, it  is  permitted  to  stand,  though  guarded  from 
all  sinful  approach,  till  the  right  to  eat  of  it  in  the  heav- 
enly Paradise  of  which  this  earthly  one  is  but  a  type, 
shall  be  regained  for  man  by  the  Second  Adam.* 

John  in  the  closing  chapters  of  his  Revelation,  after  his 
vision  of  the  battle  fought,  and  the  victory  won,  and  Sa- 
tan and  all  his  hosts,  not  only  overthrown,  but  cast  into 
the  lake  of  fire,  with  Death  and  Hades  to  be  utterly  and 
forever  consumed,  gives  a  glowing  picture  of  this  celes- 
tial Paradise,  and  then  says :  "  And  he  showed  me  a  pure 

*  The  Hindu  Mythology  teaches  that  there  is  a  certain  fluid 
prepared  by  the  gods,  called  the  Amrutta  or  drink  of  immor- 
tality, which  confers  eternal  life  upon  all  who  taste  it.  But  to 
the  pious  man,  along  with  immortality,  it  brings  happiness, 
without  measure  and  without  end;  while  in  the  wicked  it 
works  everlasting  agony.  So  has  heathen  tradition  misinter- 
preted and  perverted  the  real  design  of  this  Tree  of  Life — The 
goodness  of  God  forbids  His  conferring  immortality  on  the 
wicked  who  must  of  necessity  be  miserable.  It  is  only  those 
who  are  fitted  to  enjoy  eternal  Life  who  are  permitted  to  eat  of 
this  fruit. 


Chap.  YIII.]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN    AND    DEATH.  151 

river  of  water  of  life  clear  as  crystal,  proceeding  out  of 
the  throne  of  God  and  the  Lamb.  In  the  midst  of  the 
street  of  it  and  on  either  side  of  the  river  was  there  the 
Tree  of  Life,  which  bore  twelve  manner  of  fruits,  and 
yielded  her  fruit  every  month,  and  the  leaves  of  tlie  tree 
were  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  And  there  shall  be 
no  more  curse,  but  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb 
shall  be  in  it,  and  His  servants  shall  serve  Him;  and  they 
shall  see  His  face ;  and  His  name  shall  be  in  their  fore- 
heads, and  there  shall  be  no  night  there;  and- they  need 
no  candle,  neither  the  light  of  the  sun ;  for  the  Lord  God 
giveth  them  light ;  and  they  shall  reign  forever  and  ever." 
That  God  should  have  caused  the  eternal  destiny  of  the 
whole  human  race  to  depend  on  this  one  act  of  the  first 
pair  seems,  to  many,  arbitrary  and  unjust.  But  this  com- 
plaint arises  from  a  misconception  of  the  case.  If  the 
two  alternatives  had  been  eternal  happiness  or  eternal 
misery,  as  our  traditional  theology  teaches,  then  indeed 
one  might  well  complain  of  such  a  trial  for  the  race,  or 
even  for  any  one  individual  of  the  race.  But  there  was 
no  such  trial.  The  alternatives  were  not  eternal  weal  or 
eternal  woe  even  for  themselves,  much  less  for  their  pos- 
terity ;  nor  is  there  any  warrant  from  Scripture  for  such 
an  inference.  The  test  was  simply  this :  Which  should 
have  the  supremacy,  their  moral  or  their  physical  natures 
— Whether  they  should  be  controlled  by  the  demands  of 
the  spirit  or  the  flesh,  by  faith  or  by  sight, — Whether 
they  should  seek  as  their  supreme  good,  things  heavenly 
and  eternal  or  things  earthly  and  perishable.  If  they 
should  choose  the  former,  they  might  hope  for  the  favor 
of  God  forever,  and  need  have  no  fear  of  death ;  if  the 
latter,  they  would  incur  His  displeasure,  and,  of  neces- 
sity, have  their  portion  in  the  perishable  and  transitory 
things  of  earth,  like  all  other  earthly  creatures. 


152  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  11. 

The  trial  of  the  first  pair  would  evidently  be  the  trial 
of  the  whole  race  of  their  descendants ;  for  all  are  con^ 
stituted  alike.  The  stream  cannot  rise  any  higher  than 
its  source.  The  popular  proverb  is  certainly  applicable 
in  this  case  :  "  It  is  not  needful  to  drink  the  whole  barrel 
to  test  the  quality  of  its  contents."  One  taste  will  suffice 
for  this.  This  will  be  especially  evident  when  we  con- 
sider the  perfect  equipoise  of  their  natures ;  that  they 
were  swayed  by  no  evil  habits,  or  tendencies  or  heredi- 
tary bias,  and  were  surrounded  by  hardly  any  other  temp- 
tation to  sin  but  in  this  one  direction.  No  trial  could 
have  been  made  under  circumstances  more  favorable  to 
a  successful  issue.  It  proved  conclusively,  that  the  hu- 
man race  was  as  yet  unfit  for  immortality.  And  if  God 
had  not  intended  to  give  us  Eternal  Life,  under  another 
probation,  and  better  auspices,  our  case  would  have  been 
hopeless. 

Let  us  suppose  that  they  had  successfully  passed 
through  this  first  trial ;  this  would  not  have  placed  them 
beyond  the  reach  of  temptation,  so  long  as  they  remained 
in  the  flesh,  the  perpetuation  of  their  lives  would  still 
have  depended  on  their  perpetual  obedience.  They 
could  have  attained  to  nothing  in  this  life,  beyond  a  con- 
tingent immortality,  conditioned  on  their  continued  free- 
dom from  sin.  Neither  could  their  descendants,  however 
free  they  might  have  been  from  any  evil  bias  at  their 
birth.  Every  one  must  have  been  on  a  continuous  pro- 
bation, with  no  security  against  falling  excepting  in 
himself. 

Instead  of  complaining,  ought  we  not  to  rejoice  that 
we  have  had  our  trial  in  them,  and  that  though  we  come 
into  life  under  this  forfeiture  with  all  the  disabilities  it 
imposes,  we  come  under  a  system  of  recovering  grace,  by 
which  Eternal  Life  is  again  offered  to  us  by  a  new  birth 


Chap.YIII.]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN    AND   DEATH.  153 

through  a  Second  Adam,  and  secured  to  all  who  accept 
of  it  through  Him,  beyond  the  possibility  of  loss  ? 

Still  further  may  we  not  inquire,  whether  mankind 
could  have  been  qualified  for  this  better  life,  but  by  a 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil  ?  Whether  they  could  have 
risen  to  that  life  above,  without  first  having  gone  down 
to  death  through  the  sad  experience  of  sin  ?  Was  not 
the  Adamic  state  necessarily  preliminary  and  preparatory 
to  the  higher  Christian  state  ?  May  we  not  see  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Creator,  as  well  as  His  goodness  and  mercy, 
in  this  plan  of  recovering  grace  ?  Instead  of  looking  up- 
on the  fall  of  man  as  originally  created,  as  a  disaster  al- 
together deplorable,  and  the  scheme  of  grace  consequent 
upon  it,  as  an  expedient  to  repair  the  mischief,  and  which 
at  best  is  but  partially  successful ;  may  we  not  suppose 
that  He  who  is  all  wise,  and  sees  the  end  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  makes  no  mistakes,  in  His  purpose  to  give 
immortality  to  man,  knew  how  he  could  be  best  fitted  for 
it,  and  secured  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  boon? 

It  seems  to  be  a  law  of  nature,  and  of  providence  and 
of  grace  also,  that  the  inferior  and  imperfect  must  come 
before  that  which  is  higher  and  better ;  and  that  the 
highest  stage  is  to  be  reached  only  by  coming  up  through 
those  that  are  below.  "And  so  it  is  wi'itten,  the  first 
man  Adam  was  made  a  living  soul  (or  animal  creature)  ; 
the  last  Adam  was  made  a  quickening  (life-giving)  spirit. 
Ilowbeit,  that  was  not  first  which  is  spiritual  but  that 
which  is  natural  {animal)  and  afterward  that  which  is 
spiritual.  The  first  man  was  of  the  earth,  earthy ;  the 
second  man  is  the  Lord  from  heaven.  As  is  the  earthy, 
such  are  they  also  that  are  earthy,  and  as  is  the  heavenly, 
such  are  they  also  that  are  heavenly.  And  as  we  have 
borne  the  image  of  the  earthy,  we  shaU  also  bear  the 

image  of  the  heavenly.    Now  this  I  say,  brethren,  that 

7* 


154  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God; 
neither  doth  corruption  inherit  incorruption."  We  must 
first  go  through  this  lower  stage  and  die,  before  we  can 
rise  to  a  higher  and  more  enduring  life  in  the  kingdom  of 
God.  Did  not  our  Lord  teach  this,  when  He  said  :  "  Ver- 
ily, verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall 
into  the  ground  and  die,  it  abideth  alone ;  but  if  it  die, 
it  bringeth  forth  much  fruit."  And  does  not  the  Apostle 
Paul  say  the  same  in  the  chapter  from  which  we  have 
just  quoted :  "  That  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened 
except  it  die "  ?  Is  not  this  the  plain  teaching  of  the 
Gospel,  that  we  gain  infinitely  more  in  Christ  than  we 
lost  in  Adam?  that  what  we  lost  in  the  first  Adam  was, 
at  best,  but  an  earthly  Paradise,  but  that  in  the  Second 
Adam,  we  gain  a  celestial  Paradise  ?  that  Christ  came, 
not  simply  to  repair  the  ruin  of  the  fall,  and  to  bring  man- 
kind back  again  into  favor  with  God,  but  to  raise  them  to 
a  state  infinitely  higher  than  they  could  have  been  en- 
titled to,  had  their  earthly  progenitor  remained  in  the 
innocency  of  his  first  creation  ? 

The  first  Adam  had  but  a  contingent  life,  at  best,  and 
this  he  forfeited  for  himself  and  his  posterity — as  we  al- 
so have  done  over  and  over  again  for  ourselves  by  our 
own  sins ;  but  the  Second  Adam  proved  himself  superior 
to  the  seductions  of  the  great  Deceiver.  He  possessed 
an  absolute  immortality  in  His  own  right ;  and  this  is  the 
life  He  transmits  to  all  His  own  children  in  a  second 
bhiih,  and  by  a  resurrection  from  the  dead  ;  nor  will  He 
suffer  the  great  Adversary  to  take  it  from  them. 

*'  My  sheep  hear  my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow 
me;  and  I  give  unto  them  Eternal  Life,  and  they  shall  never 
perish;  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand." 

*'  Because  I  live  ye  shall  live  also." 

"  I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life;  he  that  believeth  in 
me,  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live.  And  whosoever 
liveth  and  believeth  in  me  shall  never  die  " 


Chap.  YIIL]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN   AND    DEATH.  155 

Note. — We  concur  so  heartily  in  the  following  sentiments 
expressed  in  a  volume  just  issued,  and  they  seem  so  apposite 
to  the  theme  in  hand  that  we  take  pleasure  in  giving  them, 
by  way  of  an  annex  to  the  foregoing  Chapter. 

"Is  the  gift  of  Eternal  Life  through  Jesus  Christ  a  perpet- 
uation of  tills  present  gift  of  life,  or  is  it  a  gift  of  a  higher 
order  ? 

"It  would  be  presumptuous  in  any  man  to  attempt  to  tell 
what  life  is.  Science  has  been  pursuing  the  secret  with  mi- 
croscope and  scalpel,  and  tracing  its  footsteps  backward  along 
the  ages.  And  yet  she  cannot  cross  the  border-line  of  this 
mystery.  All  we  know  is,  that  it  is  from  God,  the  Fountain  of 
all  Life.  Science  and  Scripture  unite  in  affirming  that  it  is 
closely  connected  with  this  system  of  creation.  Some  scien- 
tific philosophers  seek  to  convince  us  that  this  system  furnishes 
from  within  itself  the  substratum  and  the  potency  of  every 
form  of  life.  And  yet  confessedly  they  have  never  penetrated 
to  the  origin  of  life.  Their  conjectures,  therefore,  are  worth 
nothing  alongside  of  the  Bible  declaration,  that  '  the  Father 
hath  life  in  Himself,'  and  that  from  Him  all  things  live.  But 
He  has  made  nature  to  be  the  soil  upon  which  life  grows  and 
is  nurtured.  It  is  the  arena  upon  which  it  performs  its  func- 
tions and  puts  forth  its  energies.  It  is  the  domain  it  seeks  to 
subsidize  for  its  uses  and  fully  possess. 

"And  hence  we  observe  that  all  life  in  this  system  of  nature 
seeks  embodiment.  A  body  is  necessary  in  order  to  bring  cre- 
ated life  into  connection  with  and  dominion  over  God's  works. 
Our  bodies  are  centers- of  the  forces  that  play  through  this  cre- 
ated system;  batteries  by  means  of  which  they  are  stored  up 
for  our  use.  I  am  persuaded  that  in  our  prevalent  conception 
of  the  gift  of  life,  we  depreciate  embodiment.  We  infer  from 
Scriptures,  that  it  is  the  only  form  of  created  life  that  can  pos- 
sess and  enjoy  our  Father's  vast  estate.  Hence  the  impor- 
tance of  that  cardinal  doctrine  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Res- 
urrection. Even  He,  in  whom  creation  was  headed  up  from  the 
beginning,  became  embodied.  And  in  Him  the  fulness  of  the 
Godhead  now  dwells  bodily.  Evil  spirits  appear  to  bo  tho 
outcasts  from  this  system.  Hence  Scripture  gives  no  instance 
of  the  appearance  of  embodied  evil  spirits,  except  as  they 
steal  into  and  possess  themselves  of  other  persons'  bodies. 
They  even  prefer  swine  to  being  disembodied.    On  the  other 


156  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

hand,  in  all  the  instances  in  which  good  beings  from  the  un- 
seen world  appear  to  men,  there  was  a  visible  form. 

* 'Looking  now  at  the  teachings  of  science  and  of  Revelation 
concerning  the  progress  of  creation,  we  find  that,  from  the  be- 
ginning the  Creator  has  been  preparing  it  to  be  the  domain 
of  embodied  life.  We  find  an  ascending  series  of  created 
forms,  from  plants,  and  creeping  things,  until  the  whole  is 
headed  up  in  man,  made  in  the  image  of  God.  The  account  in 
Genesis  is  not  inconsistent  with,  and  is,  perhaps  best  explained 
by  the  supposition  that  there  was  a  lower  form  of  human  life 
on  the  earth  before  Adam.  We  are  not  precluded  even  from 
supposing  that  man,  as  to  his  animal  nature,  is  an  evolution 
from  the  lower  forms  of  life.  But  Adam  was  the  first  creation 
of  man  with  a  Spiritual  nature  capable  of  knowing  God  and  of 
immortality  through  union  in  life  with  Him. 

*'Adam  was  a  grand  step  upward  in  the  ascending  series  of 
life.  But  our  present  inquiry  is.  Has  the  Creator  taken  the  last 
step  in  this  advance  of  life  on  the  platform  of  His  work  ?  We 
reply.  No.  Adam  was  an  earthy  man,  made  capable  of  eter- 
nal life.  But  he  lost  this  great  boon  by  disobedience.  Indeed 
it  was  never  intended  that  he  should  attain  and  hold  it  for  him- 
self and  his  posterity.  The  casket  of  his  manhood  was  too 
frail  for  such  a  treasure,  his  hand  too  weak  for  such  a  scepter. 
It  was  in  the  mind  of  God  from  the  beginning  of  creation  to 
produce  on  its  platform  a  Divine  man,  immortal  in  his  own  na- 
ture, as  the  completed  im;>ge  of  Himself,  and  worthy  to  wear 
as  his  representative  the  crown  of  this  great  system.  The  first 
man  was  but  a  mortal,  corruptible  image  of  the  invisible 
God,  a  perishable  model  in  clay,  of  the  noble  image  in  the 
mind  of  the  Divine  Artist,  which  was  to  hereafter  stand  on  the 
summit  of  creation  and  wear  its  crown. 

"The  incarnation,  therefore,  was  another  step  in  the  ascending 
series  of  creation,  the  birth  into  it  of  a  heavenly  man,  but  not 
the  final  step,  as  is  assumed,  in  much  of  the  Chi'istian  think- 
ing of  the  day.  Its  highest  exponents,  as,  for  example,  Joseph 
Cook,  do  not  avoid  this  error  of  making  the  incarnation  the 
climax  of  creation.  It  can  be  shown  that  this  is  a  subtle  point 
of  departure  from  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints.  The 
Eesurrecfion  of  Jesus  in  the  glorified  form  of  manhood,  that  was 
the  culmination  of  all  God's  wondrous  working  in  creation 
along  the  ages.    To  stop  short  of  this,  to  view  the  incarnation 


Chap,  yill.]    THE    GENESIS    OF    SIN    AND    DEATH.  157 

otherwise  than  as  in  order  to  the  resurrection,  is  only  to  know 
Christ  Jesus  after  the  flesh,  whereas  we  are  henceforth  to  know 
Him  in  this  character  no  more.  It  is  to  forget  that  if  any  man 
be  in  Christ  he  is  a  new  creation.  The  newly  created  immortal 
man,  the  perfect  image  of  the  invisible  God,  was  brought  to 
view  when  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead.  The  ideal  manhood, 
which  had  been  the  primeval  thought  of  God,  and  the  goal  of 
His  creative  energy  was  then  realized.  Before  tkis  signal  tri- 
umph Jesus  was  in  the  likeness  of  sinful  flesh.  Our  flesh  and 
blood  even  in  Him  could  not  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God. 
Hence  His  body  was  newly  created  in  that  fashion  of  Glory 
in  which,  as  the  risen  man,  He  is  now  seated  at  the  right  hand 
of  power. 

"  At  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  then,  we  have  the  introduction 
of  the  new  and  final  form  of  embodied  life,  the  divine  man- 
hood. And  this  is  the  grand,  the  culminating  revelation  of 
the  Word  of  God,  the  mystery,  which  in  other  ages  was  not 
made  known,  and  before  the  splendor  of  which  the  light  which 
shines  upon  all  heathen  systems  of  religion,  or  of  human 
philosophy,  or  from  the  highest  watch-towers  of  modern  science 
pales,  as  does  a  rush-light  before  the  sun. 

"If  we  were  to  ask  Science  whether  the  highest  form  of  cre- 
ated life  has  yet  appeared  upon  the  earth,  she  cannot  tell  us. 
She  leads  up  through  all  stages  of  life  to  the  earthly  man  and 
exclaims,  Ecce  homo  1  Behold  the  man  for  whom  the  earth 
has  been  so  long  preparing!  But  she  knows  nothing  of  the 
coming  man.  She  teaches  no  doctrine  of  resurrection  from  the 
dead. 

"  But  this  Word  tells  us  of  a  new  order  of  humanity.  The 
Head  and  Type  of  it  has  already  been  here.  He  was  made 
flesh  and  dwelt  among  us.  But  through  death  He  passed  be- 
yond this  mortal  sphere  out  into  immortal  manhood.  And 
all  heaven  uttered  another  Ecce  Homo  !  Behold  the  man,  the 
final  result  of  God's  wondrous  working  along  the  ages,  the 
consummate  product  of  His  wisdom  and  power  in  heaven  and 
on  earth.  When  Paul,  then,  speaks  as  he  does  in  his  salutation 
to  Titus,  of  the  '  hope  of  Eternal  life,  which  God,  that  cannot 
lie,  promised  before  the  world  began,'  he  is  speaking  definite- 
ly of  that  new  order  of  life  which  is  embodied  in  the  new 
man,  Christ  Jesus.  This  is  now  God's  gift  to  us  through 
Him.      It  is  not  a  mere  perpetuation    of  the  order  of    life 


158  THE    UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II, 

and  manhood  in  which  we  were  first  created  in  Adam. 
It  is  a  new  endowment  to  which  we  are  born  in  Christ,  in  vir- 
tue of  which  we  become  Sons  of  Qod  of  a  new  order,  a  new 
and  higher  rank  in  creation.  To  this  new  manhood  there  per- 
tains that  life  which  is  superior  to  all  the  foices  and  sub- 
stances of  the  universe.  Life,  as  we  see  it  in  these  perishable 
forms,  has  power  to  subsidize  the  elements  of  nature  for  its 
support,  and  to  direct  its  force  for  its  own  ends.  But  this  it 
does  now,  not  by  inherent  right,  but  in  the  way  of  warfare 
and  subjugation,  and  in  this  struggle  its  powers  ultimately 
break  down.  But  Eternal  life  must  bend  all  things  in  heaven 
and  earth  to  its  behest.  It  must  be  superior  to  all  principali- 
ties and  powers.  All  substances  must  wait  upon  its  needs,  and 
all  forces  become  tributary  to  its  aims.  The  harvest  therefore, 
for  which  God  has  long  been  nloughing  and  tilling  these  fields 
of  creation  is  not  yet  complete.  A  new  order  of  being  is  to 
be  produced,  invested  with  Eternal  life.  Christ  is  the  'first 
fruits'  in  the  new  order.  But  we  also  are  *  a  kind  of  first 
fruits.' 

"We  are  told  that  the  whole  creation  is  groaning  and  waiting 
for  the  manifestation  of  these  Sons  of  God,  They  are  its  des- 
tined lords,  and  also  its  deliverers.  They  are  that  anointed 
race  who  are  to  subdue  all  its  wide  realms  to  the  will  of  God, 
and  make  them  vocal  with  His  praise.  And  they  cannot  be 
fitted  for  this  high  office  except  as  they  rise  in  eternal  life 
triumphant  over  all  the  forces  and  powers  that  prevail  in  this 
system.  Man  in  flesh  and  blood  is  not  worthy  or  capable  of 
this  dignity.  But  God,  before  the  foundation  of  the  world, 
provided  for  the  redemption  and  reinvestment  of  man  for  this 
high  office  in  the  power  of  an  endless  life.  And  this,  as  we 
have  seen,  implies  corporeity.  Eternal  life  for  man  requires  his 
new  creation  in  body  as  well  as  spirit. 

"Ill  this  way  alone  can  he  become  a  perfect  image  of  God  and 
a  fit  vessel  for  His  eternal  praise."  The  mystery  of  Creation  and 
qj  Man,    Chap.  XII.    Rev.  L.  C.  Baker. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

Inferential  Evidence. 
I.  Animal  Sacrifices.     II.  Silence  of  the  Scriptures, 

The  inferential  evidence,  from  the  Scriptures  in  support 
of  our  thesis,  is  so  clear  and  strong,  that  we  must  call  the 
reader's  attention  to  two  points  at  least,  under  this  head, 
before  proceeding  to  examine  that  which  is  more  direct 
and  explicit. 

I.   The  institution  of  Animal  Sacrifices. 

The  prominent  position  that  was  given  to  this  rite  in 
the  religious  worship  of  God's  ancient  people,  from  the 
very  beginning  down  to  the  death  of  Christ  the  Great  Sac- 
rifice, shows  that  it  had  a  peculiar  significance.  It  took 
precedence  of  every  other  act  of  worship.  In  fact,  their 
religious  worship  centered  in  this  one  rite.  It  was  not 
merely  the  chief  way,  under  the  old  economy,  but  the 
only  revealed  way  of  acceptable  approach  to  God.  It 
seems  to  have  been  instituted  immediately  after  the  fall, — 
even  before  our  first  parents  were  driven  from  the  garden. 
For  the  very  next  event  recorded,  after  the  announcement 
of  the  sentence,  is  this  fact :  "  Unto  Adam  also  and  to 
his  wife  did  the  Lord  make  coats  of  skins  and  clothed 
them."  We  may  well  suppose  that  these  were  skins  of 
animals  they  had  been  instructed  to  offer  in  sacrifice ;  for 
they  had  not  yet  received  permission  to  eat  animal  flesh. 
In  the  next  chapter  we  read  of  the  sacrifice  "  of  the  first- 
lings of  his  flock,"  which  Abel  brought,  and  the  offering 
"  of  the  fruit  of  the  ground  "  which  Cain  brought  unto 

159 


160  TITE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

the  Lord;  and  that,  "the  Lord  had  respect  unto 
Abel  and  to  his  offering ;  but  unto  Cain  and  his  offering 
He  had  not  respect."  Why  was  the  one  more  acceptable 
than  the  other  ?  For  aught  that  appears  to  the  contrary, 
the  offering  of  Cain  was  as  pure,  and  as  costly,  and  as 
freely  made  as  that  of  liis  brother.  The  reason  for  this 
difference  is  quite  obvic/lis.  The  one  was  a  sacrifice,  and 
the  other  was  not.  In  the  offering  of  Cain,  there  was  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  Sovereignty  of  God.  It  was  an 
act  of  worship.  But  there  was  no  recognition  of  the  for- 
feiture of  his  own  life  by  sin,  nor  of  his  need  of  salva- 
tion from  its  penalty  of  death.  But  Abel,  in  pouring  out 
the  life  of  these  innocent  victims,  acknowledged  the  for- 
feiture of  his  own  life ;  and  sought  the  mercy  of  God 
through  these  animal  substitutes.  Whether  he  had  any 
intelligent  faith  in  the  Great  Sacrifice  yet  to  be  offered,  of 
which  to  us  it  is  the  evident  type,  we  need  not  now  in- 
quire. It  is  to  the  import  of  the  sacrifice  itself  that  we 
ask  attention.  Why  should  the  life  of  an  innocent  ani- 
mal be  taken  and  given  to  God  by  the  Avorshiper? 
What  else  could  it  mean,  but  that  the  life  of  the  wor- 
shiper himself  had  been  forfeited  ?  Theologians  tell 
us  that  it  is  an  acknowledgment  of  the  Sovereignty  of 
God.  So  is  all  worship.  So  was  Cain's  offering.  It 
means  vastly  more  than  this.  Viewed  apart  from  this 
idea  of  the  forfeiture  of  life,  and  the  offering  of  an  inno- 
cent substitute, — the  most  worthy  one  that  can  be  found — 
this  rite  would  seem  to  be  without  reason,  and  anything 
but  acceptable  to  a  holy  God,  who  has  a  tender  regard 
for  all  His  creatures. 

From  the  early  institution  of  this  rite,  we  see  how  it 
came  to  have  a  place  in  the  religions  of  mankind  every- 
where. It  was  not  a  human  device.  It  came  down  by 
tradition   from   the   beginning.      Though    mankind    de- 


Chap.  IX.]  INPEEENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  161 

parted  far  from  the  true  God,  and  lost  the  knowledge  of 
Him,  yet  they  were  not  suffered  to  lose  this  one  grand 
fact,  that  speaks  so  plainly  of  the  forfeiture  of  life  by 
sin,  and  of  redemption  as  their  only  ground  of  hope. 
This  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  "  God  has  not  left  Him- 
self without  a  witness,"  even  amid  the  darkness  of  the 
heathen  world.  No  other  reason  can  be  assigned  why  so 
singular  and  otherwise  unmeaning  a  rite,  should  have 
been  so  universally  adopted.  It  speaks  plainly  of  the 
need  of  redemption  by  a  substitute.  It  points  to  the 
Gospel  yet  to  be  revealed  to  the  world.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed  that  its  full  significance  was  apprehended  by 
these  ignorant  idolaters  ;  nor  was  it  even  by  the  Ancient 
Hebrews  ;  nor  by  Abel.  It  could  not  have  been,  till  the 
blood  of  Christ,  "  which  speaketh  of  better  things  than 
the  blood  of  Abel's  "  sacrifice  was  poured  out  on  Calvary. 

We  who  live  under  the  Gospel  know  that  all  these  ani- 
mal sacrifices,  pointed  to  '*  the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh 
away  the  sin  of  the  world."  But  it  is  to  be  feared,  that 
many  under  the  Gospel  have  but  a  very  faint  and  imper- 
fect idea  of  the  true  meaning  of  that  Great  Sacrifice  made 
for  their  redemption  from  death. 

Why  must  these  animals  be  put  to  death  ?  Why  must 
their  blood,  which  is  their  life,  be  poured  out  ?  They 
/^ere  not  to  be  tortured,  nor  imprisoned ;  but  put  to 
death,  and  that  too,  with  as  little  suffering  as  possible. 
The  significance  of  the  act  did  not  consist  in  the  mere 
offering  of  the  animals  to  God ;  but  in  the  offering  of 
their  lives,  in  the  spilling  of  their  blood.  So  the  virtue 
of  the  Great  Offering  consists,  not  in  the  sufferings 
which  our  Lord  endured,  as  a  false  theology  teaches. 
These  were  brief,  though  severe  while  they  continued  ; 
but  not  so  severe  as  the  sufferings  of  thousands  who  have 
been  put  to  death  under  every  form  of  protracted  tortures 


162  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

that  human  and  fiendish  cruelty  could  devise.  The 
schoolmen,  who  undertake  to  find  the  virtue  of  Christ's 
sacrifice,  in  the  agonies  He  suffered,  and  who  estimate 
them  as  equal,  in  amount,  to  what  would  have  been  the 
accumulated  agonies  of  all  whom  He  redeemed  from  eter- 
nal suffering,  miss  its  true  meaning  entirely.  Thus  we 
see  to  what  preposterous  conclusions  this  false  dogma  of 
immortality  in  sin  and  suffering  will  drive  men  in  their 
efforts  to  explain  the  simple  Gospel  in  accordance  with  it. 
It  was  by  the  Death  of  Christ  that  we  are  redeemed 
from  death, — the  death  of  a  sinless  man  who  could  claim 
in  His  own  right  exemption  from  death,  as  Adam  might 
have  done  had  he  continued  sinless.  It  was  no  mockery 
of  death  by  which  He  escaped  from  the  body,  for  a  time, 
that  He  might  make  an  excursion  into  Hades  and  then 
return  and  take  it,  but  an  actual  death,  the  same  kind  of 
death  that  man  incurs  by  sin.  All  that  was  human  in 
Him  died — His  Divine  Spirit  could  not  die — and  then, 
quickened  again  by  that  same  Spuit,  He  burst  the  bands 
of  death,  and  rose  in  the  same  body,  and  yet  not  the  same, 
for  it  was  changed  into  a  glorious,  imperishable  body,  and 
made  fit  for  the  everlasting  habitation  of  His  immortal 
Spirit.  It  is  not  by  His  death  alone,  but  by  His  death 
and  resurrection  that  He  becomes  our  Redeemer  from 
death.  If  He  had  not  risen,  there  could  have  been  no 
resurrection  for  us.  We  had  utterly  perished.  He  died, 
then,  not  to  save  us  from  dying,  but  to  redeem  us  from 
the  power  and  dominion  of  death.  Now  He  is  qualified 
to  become  the  Second  Adam  of  all  of  us  who  trust  in 
Him,  and  to  immortalize  us  by  a  new  birth  and  by  a  res- 
urrection from  the  dead  at  His  Second  Coming,  when 
"  He  shall  change  our  vile  bodies  that  they  may  be  fash- 
ioned like  unto  His  glorious  body,  according  to  the  work- 
ing whereby  He  is  able  to  subdue  aU  things  unto  Himself." 


Chap.  IX.]  I^TFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  163 

Viewed  in  this  light,  the  sacrificial  system  becomes 
luminous,  and  sets  forth  emphatically,  this  great  Gospel 
truth,  that  though  we  inherit  death  from  our  progenitors 
in  the  flesh,  we  have  life  again  and  immortality  from  our 
Spiritual  Progenitor,  the  Eternal  Son  of  God. 

11.  The  Silence  of  the  Scriptures  as  to  the  Natural 
Immortality  of  Man. 

Our  traditional  theology  teaches  that  every  child  of 
Adam  that  is  born  into  the  world  is  born  to  a  life  that  is 
absolutely  endless ;  that  he  can  neither  lose  nor  forfeit 
nor  extinguish  it  by  any  act  of  his  own,  and  that  the 
Creator  Himself  never  can,  or  at  least,  never  will,  for  any 
cause  whatever,  destroy  it,  or  take  it  away  from  him, 
however  much  he  may  despise  or  abuse  the  gift,  or  fail  of 
the  end  for  which  he  was  created ;  that  the  flame  of  life, 
once  kindled  in  infancy,  will  burn  on  and  on  so  long  as 
God  Himself  endures;  that  there  is  no  power  in  sin 
which — as  the  Scriptures  say — "bringeth  forth  death," 
to  put  an  end  to  it ;  that  the  waters  of  Lethe  cannot 
quench  it,  nor  the  blasts  of  God's  anger  in  the  judgment 
extinguish  it,  nor  the  gnawing  worm,  or  devouring  fire  of 
Gehenna  consume  it,  nor  the  agonies  of  the  second  death 
destroy  it ;  but  that  it  will  survive  the  wreck  of  nature 
and  the  crash  of  worlds,  and  throughout  all  the  revolving 
cycles  of  an  unending  future,  hold  on  its  way  unextin- 
guished and  inextinguishable,  like  the  life  of  the  self- 
existent  God,  who  gave  it  being. 

We  might  reasonably  suppose  that  a  doctrine  like  this, 
when  we  consider  the  prominent  place  that  is  given  to  it 
in  our  theological  systems  and  in  the  creeds  of  the 
Church,  would  be  found  somewhere  set  forth  in  the  Word 
of  God,  or  at  least,  that  passages  might  be  found  that 
would  serve  as  a  foundation  for  such  a  belief.  But  so 
far  from  this,  there  is  not  ote  single  passage  in  all  the 
Bible  that  asserts  or  even  intim.  tes  any  such  doctrine. 


164  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

The  honest  advocates  of  this  doctrine  are  obliged  to 
confess  that  it  is  a  deduction  from  philosophy,  rather 
than  from  Scripture.  And  then,  by  taking  these  many 
passages  of  Scripture,  that  flatly  contradict  their  dogma 
in  an  extraordinary  and  metaphorical  sense,  they  would 
fain  bring  them  into  harmony  with  their  philosophy. 
But  as  for  finding  even  one  text  that  asserts  it,  they  can- 
not. When  you  put  them  upon  their  pliilosophy,  they 
are  constrained  to  acknowledge  their  inability  to  de- 
monstrate it.  The  late  President  Dwight,  of  Yale  Col- 
lege, in  his  sermons.  Vol.  I.,  p.  163,  says : 

"  Among  Christians  I  know  of  but  one  who  has  re- 
garded the  immortality  of  the  soul  as  susceptible  of 
demonstration.  Should  we  believe  with  this  ingenious 
writer  that  the  soul  metaphysically  considered  is  so 
formed  as  naturally  to  be  immortal,  we  must  still  ac- 
knowledge, because  it  cannot  be  denied,  that  its  exist- 
ence may  terminate  at  death  or  at  any  other  supposable 
period.  Whatever  has  been  created  can  certainly  be 
annihilated  by  the  power  which  created  it.  The  contin- 
uance of  the  soul  must  therefore  depend  absolutely  on 
the  will  of  God.  But  that  will  can  never  be  known  by 
creatures  unless  He  is  pleased  to  disclose  it.  Without 
Revelation  therefore,  the  immortality  of  the  soul  must 
be  entirely  uncertain." 

Very  true.  And  how  is  it  with  Revelation  ?  Neither 
he,  nor  any  other  man,  has  ever  been  able  to  find  one 
single  passage  to  sustain  their  doctrine.  Let  us  not  be 
misunderstood.  It  is  not  the  doctrine  of  Christian  im- 
mortality— of  immortality  or  eternal  life  by  a  new  birth 
through  Christ  the  Saviour,  of  which  we  are  speaking. 
The  Bible  is  full  of  this  doctrine.  It  may  be  found  in 
the  Old  Testament,  though  not  so  clearly  revealed  as  in 
the  New.  It  is  the  special  theme  of  the  Gospel,  through 
which  Life  and  Immortality  are  brought  to  light.  But 
it  is  everywhere  emphatically'  declared  to  be  the  special 


m 


Chap.  IX.]  INFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  165 

portion  of  the  redeemed.  It  is  given  in  the  new  birth, 
through  Christ,  and  not  in  the  natural  birth  from  Adam. 
This  is  the  point  to  which  the  reader's  attention  is 
especially  directed.  The  Scriptures  are  not  merely 
silent,  with  reference  to  this  philosophic  doctrine  of  the 
natural  immortality  of  man ;  they  not  merely  refrain 
from  asserting  it,  they  contradict  it  in  every  possible  way. 
We  have  already  sufficiently  shown  that  the  Greek  adjec- 
tive aidnios,  signifying  eternal,  is  never,  never  used  to 
qualify  the  word  psuche,  which  means  the  natural  life  or 
soul  of  man.  But  it  is  only  coupled  with  the  word  zoe, 
which  designates  that  higher  spiritual  life,  which  is  given 
in  the  new  birth.  In  this  connection  it  is  employed  over 
and  over  again,  scores  of  times,  and  is  usually  translated 
Eternal  Life  or  the  Life  Everlasting.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  analogous  words  in  the  Hebrew. 

1.  Now  what  do  these  advocates  do  when  they  would 
prove  from  the  Scriptures  the  immortality  of  the  natural 
man?  Why,  they  transfer  these  qualifying  adjectives 
from  the  word  zoe,  to  the  word  psuche^  from  the  word 
signifying  the  higher  spiritual  life,  which  man  receives 
only  in  the  second  birth,  to  that  signifying  the  lower 
psychical  life,  which  we  all  have  by  the  natural  birth ; 
They  take  those  passages  of  Scripture  which  predicate 
eternal  life  of  the  children  of  God  as  His  peculiar  gift,  and 
apply  them  to  the  whole  human  family,  without  any  dis- 
tinction of  character.  In  other  words,  they  utterly  ignore 
this  main  distinction  which  is  everywhere  made  in  the 
Scriptures  between  the  regenerate  and  the  unregenerate. 
We  have  no  wish  to  attribute  intentional  dishonesty 
any  of  our  Christian  brethren  who  are  so  hard  pushed 
o  sustain  their  dogma  out  of  the  Bible,  which  so  mani- 
festly contradicts  it.  But  we  have  learned  that  good 
Christian  men,  when  blinded  by  error,  will  take  unwar- 


166  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

ranted  liberties  with  the  Scriptures  to  defend  their 
favorite  dogmas.  This  method  of  proving  from  the 
Bible  the  universal  immortality  of  all  men,  is  the  same 
that  the  Universalist  employs,  to  prove  the  doctrine  of 
Universal  salvation.  After  explaining  away,  as  well  as 
he  can,  those  texts  that  directly  contradict  his  doctrine, 
he  takes  all  those  passages  that  predicate  salvation  of 
the  righteous,  and  applies  them  to  the  righteous  and 
wicked  alike.  In  no  other  way  can  either  believers  in 
Universal  salvation,  or  believers  in  Universal  immortal- 
ity make  the  Scriptures  seem  to  justify  their  position. 

In  proof  of  what  we  say,  let  the  reader  refer  to  any 
Bible  text  book,  or  collection  of  Scripture  texts  to  estab- 
lish the  various  doctrines  of  the  orthodox  system,  which 
he  may  have  at  hand.  We  turn  to  the  very  convenient 
J3ible  Text  Book  of  the  American  Tract  Society,  and  we 
find  that  the  judicious  compiler  under  the  head  of  Im- 
mortality cites  no  texts  to  prove  that  this  is  an  attribute 
of  man,  simply  because  there  are  none.  He  cites  only 
those  that  assert  the  immortality  of  God.  But  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Catechetical  Compendium  of  Christian 
Doctrine  by  Rev.  John  Perry,  the  following  instruction  is 
given.  "  What  do  you  mean  when  you  say  your  soul  is 
immortal  ?  I  mean  that  my  soul  can  never  die.  How 
do  you  know  this  ?  We  know  it,  I.  From  reason.  II. 
From  Divine  justice.  III.  From  Divine  Revelation." 
Under  this  last  head  two  texts  and  only  two  are  quoted, 
and  both  of  them  from  the  Book  of  Wisdom  in  the 
Apocrypha !  as  follows :  "  God  created  man  incorrupti- 
ble" ..  2:  23.  "The  souls  of  the  just  are  in  the  hand 
of  God,  and  the  torment  of  death  shall  not  touch  them. 
In  the  sight  of  the  unwise  they  seemed  to  die,  and  their 
going  away  from  us  was  taken  for  utter  destruction ;  but 
they  are  in  peace  .  .  their  hope  is  full  of  immortality." 


Chap.  IX.]  INFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  167 

3  :  1-4.  If  the  author  could  have  found  any  texts  in  the 
Canonical  Scriptures  he  would  surely  have  quoted  them, 
But  even  these  two  Apocryphal  texts  give  no  support  to 
the  doctrine.  It  was  necessary  to  garble  the  first  of 
these  citations  and  to  omit  what  immediately  follows,  or 
its  testimony  would  be  seen  to  be  directly  against  the 
doctrine  it  is  used  to  support.  For  the  next  verse  reads  : 
"But  by  the  envy  of  the  devil,  death  came  into  the 
world ;  and  they  follow  him  that  are  of  his  side."  As 
for  the  second  quotation — immortality  is  declared  to  be 
the  peculiar  hope  of  the  just. 

Simmons,  in  his  Scripture  Manual^  under  the  title 
Immortality  of  the  Soul,  cites  these  three  following 
texts  and  no  other.  Let  us  examine  them,  and  see  if 
they  sustain  this  doctrine  of  universal  immortality. 

1.  "  My  sheep  hear  my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  fol- 
low Me;  And  I  give  unto  them  Eternal  life;  and  they  shall 
never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand. 
John  10:  27,28. 

Is  it  possible  that  the  compiler  did  not  see,  or  that  the 
reader  can  fail  to  see,  that  immortality  is  here  declared 
to  be  the  special  portion  of  Christ's  people — the  peculiar 
gift  of  His  grace  ?  He  says  "  My  sheep."  "  I  give  un- 
to them  Eternal  life."  Why,  instead  of  being  a  text  to 
prove  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  the  psuche^  the  natu- 
ral life  of  man,  it  is  a  most  emphatic  denial  of  the  doc- 
trine. It  shows  conclusively  that  it  is  not  a  natural  gift, 
but  a  supernatural  gift  of  grace. 

2.  "Who  will  render  to  every  man  according  to  his  deeds; 
To  those  who  by  patient  continuance  in  well  doing,  seek  for 
glory  and  honor  and  m;?ioriaZi<2^,"— Eternal  life.     Kom.  2:  G,  7- 

And  what  shall  He  render  to  those  who  do  not  "  seek 
for  glory  and  honor  and  immortality"?  The  Apostle 
goes   on    to   tell   us   in    the    twelfth   verse,    they    shall 


168  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

"  PERISH."  This  text  also,  instead  of  asserting  the  nat- 
ural immortality  of  all  men,  asserts  just  the  contrary 
doctrine — that  it  is  the  portion  of  those  only  who  seek 
for  it. 

3.  "  Who  hath  saved  us  and  called  us  with  a  holy  calling, 
not  according  to  our  works,  but  according  to  Ilis  own  purpose 
and  grace  which  was  given  to  us  in  Christ  Jesus  ;  but  is  now 
made  manifest,  by  the  appearing  of  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ 
who  hath  abolished  death  and  hath  brought  life  and  immortal- 
ity to  light  through  the  Gospel."    2  Tim.  1 :  9, 10. 

The  author  refers  only  to  the  last  clause  ;  we  have 
quoted  the  verses  immediately  preceding,  with  which  it 
is  intimately  connected.  Here  we  have  Death  and 
Life  contrasted,  as  almost  always  in  the  writings  of  Paul ; 
the  one  as  the  natural  inheritance  of  man  from  Adam, 
the  other  as  the  gift  of  God's  grace  through  Jesus 
Christ.  Channing  says,  "  Immortality  is  the  glorious  dis- 
covery oi  Christianity!"  Discovery?  He  should  have 
said  the  glorious  gift  of  Christianity.  It  was  not  dis- 
covered by  Christianity,  as  the  principle  of  attraction 
was  discovered  by  Newton,  who  brought  it  to  light  as  a 
universal  principle  of  nature  which  had  hitherto  been 
only  unknown  on  account  of  our  ignorance.  Immortality 
would  not  have  been  a  fact  but  for  Christianity.  It  was 
indeed  God's  purpose,  as  the  Apostle  says,  "  before  the 
world  began  "  to  immortalize  man — to  give  him  Eternal 
Life,  if  he  could  be  made  fit  for  it ;  but  not  through 
Adam.  From  him  we  inherit  only  death — but  only 
through  Christ,  who  hath  abolished  death  and  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light — by  a  second  birth  and  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead. 

Dr.  S.  C.  Bartlett  pursues  the  same  method  in  his 
well-known  work,  entitled  Life  and  Death  Eternal.  In 
the  second  part  of  the  volume,  under  the  head  of  "  A 


Chap.  IX.]  INFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  169 

positive  disproof  of  the  doctrine  of  annihilation^''''  he 
occupies  a  whole  chapter  in  telling  of  Enoch  and  Elijah, 
who  were  translated  to  heaven,  and  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob,  who  were  gathered  to  their  fathers  in 
peace,  of  Job  and  Moses  and  David  and  Daniel,  and  of 
the  hopes  they  entertained  of  a  better  life  beyond,  and 
ill  quoting  their  language.     We  give  a  few  extracts  : 

"  It  is  recorded  that  '  Enoch  walked  with  God,  and 
he  was  not,  for  God  took  him.'  Now  it  did  not  require 
the  explanation  of  the  writer  to  the  Hebrews  to  unfold 
the  meaning  of  this  statement.  A  good  man  who 
walked  with  God  while  on  earth, — and  the  fact  is  twice 
affirmed, — God  therefore  takes  Wliither?  To  annihila- 
tion? To  extinction  of  all  conscious  joy?  Is  that  the 
mode  in  which  God  shows  His  love  for  a  good  man  ? 
The  thought  is  ridiculous.  He  took  him  to  Himself,  to 
heaven ;  to  be  with  Him  on  high,  with  whom  he  walked 
below.  No  man  could  miss  the  meaning.  And  the 
Sacred  writer  explains  (Heb.  11:  5),  '  He  was  translated 
that  he  should  not  see  death.'  This  narrative  occurring 
almost  at  the  beginning  of  the  sacred  history,  is  very 
striking  and  weighty.  It  gives  a  key-note  to  the  whole 
strain  of  the  Scriptures." 

He  indulges  in  similar  remarks  and  inquiries  in  re- 
gard to  the  Psalmist.  In  quoting  his  language  of  confi- 
dence in  God,  and  of  hope  for  the  future  in  the  Psalms, 
he    says : 

"  How  plainly  does  the  writer  declare  his  confidence 
that  God,  who  is  his  trust,  will  rescue  him  from  the 
grave,  and  receive  him  to  eternal  joy  in  his  presence,"  etc. 

Now  what  is  the  author's  purpose  in  all  this  ?  Is  it  to 
give  the  impression  that  those  who  believe  in  "con- 
ditional immortality,"  deny  the  Eternal  Life  of  the 
righteous  ?  He  knows  that  this  is  the  very  doctrine  we 
most  emphatically  assert,  and  that  these  are  the  very 
texts  we  bring  to  prove  it.  Is  it  because  he  thinks  by 
showing  that  because  the  righteous  have  the  hope  of 
8 


170  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

Eternal  Life,  the  wicked  may  therefore  indulge  the 
same  hope,  in  spite  of  the  uniform  declaration  of  the 
Scriptures  to  the  contrary  ?  Is  it  not  rather  because  he 
can  find  no  texts  in  the  Bible  to  serve  the  purpose  of  his 
argument  in  favor  of  the  immortality  of  the  wicked; 
and  so,  to  gain  his  point,  he  must  ignore  and  break 
down  the  very  distinction  which  is  everywhere  made  in 
the  Word  of  God  between  the  portion  of  the  righteous 
and  of  the  wicked?  If  he  would  quote  Scripture  to 
any  good  purpose  on  this  point,  let  him  show  that  not 
merely  Abel  and  Enoch  and  Noah  left  this  world  in  the 
hope  of  an  immortal  life  beyond,  but  that  all  of  the 
fathers  before  the  Flood,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  "  every 
imagination  of  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts  was  only 
evil  and  that  continually,"  were  swept  away,  having  the 
same  assurance;  that  not  merely  Abraham  and  Isaac 
and  Jacob  were  gathered  to  their  fathers  in  peace,  in 
the  hope  of  a  better  resurrection,  but  that  the  beastly 
inhabitants  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  who  were  con- 
sumed by  fire  from  heaven,  as  unfit  to  live  any  longer  on 
earth,  were  not  destroyed,  but  only  transferred  to  another 
fire  below  that  shall  prey  upon  them  forever  without 
consuming  them  ;  that  Pharaoh  and  his  magicians,  as 
well  as  Moses  and  Aaron ;  that  Saul  as  well  as  Samuel 
and  David ;  and  Ahab  and  Jezebel  as  well  as  Elijah  and 
Elisha;  that  the  false  prophets  as  well  as  Daniel  and 
Isaiah  had  the  assurance — the  same  assurance  of  an  im- 
mortal life  beyond  the  present.  But  there  are  no  sucli 
texts  in  God's  Word  }^  and  every  Bible  Scholar  knows  it ; 
and  every  honest  expounder  of  God's  Word  will  acknowl- 
edge it ;  and  though  the  lack  of  such  texts  may  prove  a 
serious  inconvenience  to  him,  in  the  labor  of  proving 
that  saints  and  sinners  are  alike  immortal,  he  will  not 
attempt  to  catch   those   who  confidingly  look  to  him  for 


Chap.  IX.]  INFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  171 

instruction  "with  guile,"  by  making  the  Scriptures  seem 
to  teach  what  he  knows  they  do  not  teach. 

Dr.  George  Dana  Boardman,  in  his  Creative  WeeJc, 
frankly  says  :  "  Not  a  single  passage  of  Holy  Writ  from 
Genesis  to  Revelation  teaches,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the 
doctrine  of  man's  natural  immortality.  On  the  other 
hand.  Holy  Writ  emphatically  declares  that  God  only 
hath  immortality."  So  Olshausen  says  in  his  commen- 
tary on  Luke,  sixteenth  chapter ;  "  The  Bible  knows  not 
either  the  expression  *  immortality  of  the  soul '  or  the 
modern  doctrine  of  immortality." 

The  author  of  J^ife  in  Christ  well  says  on  this  point : 

"  In  no  single  instance  do  we  discover  in  the  book  of 
Psalms  or  in  the  poetical  books,  or  in  the  book  of  col 
lected  Proverbs  or  weighty  sayings  of  the  wise,  the  ex- 
pression of  the  Socratic  hope  of  eternal  life  founded  on 
man^s  essential  nature  as  eternal.  The  hope  of  Life  is 
restricted  to  righteous  men ;  to  the  true  servants  of 
God.  There  is  not  one  ray  of  hope  of  an  eternal  future, 
which  shines  on  the  head  of  a  rebel  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  immortality  of  the  nephesh  was  a  specula- 
tion unknown  to  the  saints  and  prophets.  'All  the 
wicked  will  He  destroy.'  '  When  the  wicked  do  spring 
as  the  grass,  and  all  the  workers  of  iniquity  do  flourish ; 
it  is  that  they  shall  be  destroyed  forever.'  No  man  lives 
"^orever  but  in  God." 

2.  There  is  another  way,  which  those  who  are  skilled 
in  dialectics  have,  of  reading  this  doctrine  of  natural  im- 
mortality into  the  Word  of  God.  They  say  it  is 
"  assumed  "  to  be  a  fact  by  the  inspired  writers  of  the 
Bible,  that  Moses  and  the  prophets,  that  Christ  and  the 
Apostles,  took  it  for  granted,  as  a  truth  too  evident  to 
require  any  formal  statement,  that : 

"  It  was  not  alone  because  the  fact  was  admitted  and 
might  be  assumed,  but  also  because  they  were  charged 
with  messages  of  such  tremendous  import  concerning 
the  character  and  condition  of  that  endless  existence,  as 


172  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

quite  to  throw  into  the  background  the  abstract  propo- 
sition of  the  soul's  immortality.  .  .  .  To  them  tlie  naked 
question  of  immortality,  aside  from  these  relations  and 
issues,  was  of  no  account  at  all — no  more  than  the  life  of 
an  oyster."     ^L^fQ  and  Death  Eternal^  pp.  191,  192.) 

So  says  Archbishop  Tillotson  {Sermon  100) :  "  The 
immortality  of  the  soul  is  rather  supposed  or  taken  for 
granted,  than  expressly  revealed  in  the  Bible." 

So  also  the  Presbyterian  Quarterly  (1860,  p.  600)  : 
"The  Bible  generally  assumes  the  immortality  of  the 
Boul,  as  it  does  the  existence  of  God.'''* 

This  may  be  regarded  as  a  very  adroit  and  ingenious 
way  of  escaping  from  the  necessity  of  proving  the  doc- 
trine that  is  confidently  declared  to  be  taught  in  the 
Scriptures ;  but  is  it  honest  ?  Is  it  fair  treatment  of  the 
inspired  volume  ? 

In  this  way  any  doctrine  not  taught  in  the  Scriptures, 
yea  one  which  is  emphatically  contradicted  by  them,  miglit 
be  charged  upon  them.  How  do  these  advocates  know 
that  it  is  "  assumed  "  by  these  sacred  writers  ?  Who  has 
authorized  them  to  say  this  ?  Why  should  a  Divine  Rev- 
elation, the  very  object  of  which  is  to  enlighten  us  on 
this  very  point,  assume  it  as  a  fact,  without  declaring  it  ? 
This  is  the  fundamental  question  that  needs  first  to  be 
well  established  "  m/^  the  sinner  live  forever  f''  before 
"  the  conditions  of  that  endless  existence  "  are  spoken  of. 

Is  the  immortality  of  the  sinner  so  much  more  evident 
than  that  of  his  Creator,  that  it  may  be  assumed,  while 
that  of  the  Creator  needs  to  be  asserted  with  constant 
reiteration  ?  He  is  called  the  "  Ever-living  God,"  "  the 
Eternal  God,"  "  the  Everlasting  Father,"  the  one  "  who 
is  and  was,  and  ever  shall  be," — "  whose  years  have  no 
end  "  "  who  liveth  forever,"  etc.,  etc.  The  very  title  by 
which  He  chooses  to  make  Himself  known  to  us  is  Je- 


Chap.  IX.]  INFERENTIAL   EVIDENCE.  173 

HOVAH  or  Jali^  which  means  the  Self-existing,  Ever-living 
one — This  is  His  most  common  designation  and  occurs 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  times  in  the  Old  Testament 
and  should  have  been  so  rendered  instead  of  by  the  words 
"The  Lord,"  which  our  translators  have  improperly  sub- 
stituted. While  on  the  other  hand  the  title  which  God 
Himself  has  given  to  man  is  "  Adam'''* — earth-made.  It 
is  just  on  this  very  point  that  the  Creator  contrasts  Him- 
self wdth  the  creature.  "  I  kill  and  I  make  alive,  neither 
is  there  any  that  can  deliver  out  of  my  hand ;  for  I  lift 
my  hancf  up  to  heaven  and  say  I  live  forever."  Shall 
puny  man  earth-made,  "  whose  breath  is  in  his  nostrils  " 
also  lift  up  his  hand  to  heaven  and  say  "  I  too  live  for- 
ever ! !  "  No,  no.  It  is  not  assumed  by  these  Inspired 
Teachers ;  but  by  these  philosophers.  They  would  fain 
read  it  into  the  Word  of  God  in  spite  of  its  plainest 
teaching  to  the  contrary.  In  this,  shall  we  not  say — how- 
ever honest  they  may  be,  they  are  the  servants,  though 
indeed  unwittingly,  yet  nevertheless  actually,  of  him  who 
first  uttered  the  doctrine  ?  We  cannot  doubt  that  if  he 
were  now  here,  as  he  was  in  Eden,  he  would  exclaim, 
"  This  is  exactly  my  doctrine,''''  "  Ye  shall  not  surely  die, 
ye  shall  be  as  God,  knowing  good  and  evil  forever !  " 

There  are  many  other  points  under  this  head  of  Infer- 
ential Evidence,  to  which  we  would  be  glad  to  call 
attention  ;  but  we  cannot  make  room  for  their  discussion 
in  this  brief  condensed  volume.  They  are  considered 
somewhat  at  length  in  the  author's  larger  volume,  The 
Life  Everlasting. 

It  ought  to  be  remarked,  before  closing  this  chapter, 
that  there  are  some  half  a  dozen  passages  of  Scripture 
that  are  very  generally  supposed  to  teach,  by  implication 
or  inference,  the  doctrine  of  immortality  in  sin  and  suf- 
fering, and  upon  which,  the  advocates  of  the  doctrine 


174  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

principally  rely  to  support  their  position.  These  will  be 
considered  by  themselves,  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  after 
we  have  listened  to  the  direct  and  explicit  testimony  of 
the  Word  of  God  to  the  doctrine  for  which  we  stand, 
that  Death,  actual  and  utter  death  is  the  common  inher- 
itance of  all  the  children  of  Adam,  and  that  immortality 
or  Eternal  Life  is  the  gift  of  God's  grace  through  Jesus 
Christ,  and  is  received  only  by  a  new  birth  and  a  resur- 
rection from  the  dead. 


CHAPTER  X. 
The  Death  Incurred. 

We  have  seen  how  that  man  was  originally  endowed 
with  alternative  possibilities,  that  there  were  within  him, 
as  in  an  evenly  adjusted  balance,  two  principles  contend- 
ing for  the  mastery ;  the  one  spiritual  and  heavenly ;  the 
other  carnal  and  earthly.  Through  the  one  he  might,  if 
he  should  so  choose,  look  upward  by  faith  to  his  Maker, 
and  become  permanently  united  to  Him,  and  thus  come 
into  fellowship  with  those  holy  creatures  that  surround 
His  throne,  and  share  in  their  immortal  destiny;  or 
through  the  other,  he  might  look  downward  to  this  earth, 
and  unite  himself,  through  the  senses,  with  the  perishable 
creatures  of  this  world  and  share  in  their  lot.  He  would 
be  a  spiritual  and  deathless  creature,  or  a  carnal  and  dy- 
ing creature,  according  as  the  one  or  the  other  should 
predominate.  We  have  seen  how  "the  world  and  the 
flesh  and  the  devil "  prevailed  to  drag  him  downward, 
and  he  became  a  soulical,  mortal  man,  and  the  progenitor 
of  a  race  like  himself.  Now  the  Holy  Law  of  God  pos- 
sesses this  same  twofold  character ;  a  spiritual  and  a  soul- 
ical significance,  adapting  it  to  both  or  either  of  these 
two  natures  in  man.  In  losing  his  spiritual  life — ^if  he 
can  properly  be  said  ever  to  have  actually  had  a  spiritual 
life  in  his  natural  state — at  any  rate,  in  forfeiting  his  spir- 
itual life  through  sin  and  coming  under  the  spiritual 
penalty,  which  made  him  a  mortal,  he  lost  the  sense  of  its 
spiritual  character,  as  he  did  of  everything  else  that  was 
3piritual,  and  came  directly  under  this  law  in  its  temporal 

175 


176  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

application.  The  law  itself  lost  none  of  its  spiritual 
character,  though  it  passed  into  desuetude  or  eclipse,  to 
be  again  uncovered  by  Christ  when  He  should  come  to 
bring  to  light  the  doctrine  of  spiritual  life  and  immortal- 
ity to  man  by  a  new  birth. 

No  intelligent  reader  can  have  failed  to  observe  how 
pre-eminently,  if  not  exclusively  temporal  and  earthly, 
the  Old  Testament  dispensation  is,  when  compared  with 
the  New.  The  rewards,  the  penalties,  the  blessings  and 
curses  of  the  law  seem  to  be  confined  to  this  life,  and 
were  so  understood  by  the  great  mass  of  those  who  lived 
under  it.  Health,  prosperity,  abundant  harvests ;  long 
life,  a  numerous  posterity ;  the  favor  of  God  and  a  peace- 
ful death  were  the  blessings  promised  to  the  obedient ; 
and  the  reverse  of  all  these  to  the  disobedient. 

Yet  all  these  sanctions  are  capable  of  a  twofold  sense. 
They  have  a  higher  application,  which  was,  no  doubt  in- 
tended, even  though  this  were  not  apprehended  by  those 
who  had  no  spiritual  discernment,  an  application  which 
Christ  brought  to  light,  when  He  came — an  application 
of  which  the  Old  Testament  saints  got  glimpses,  more  or 
less  clear,  and  which  grew  more  and  more  pei-fect  as 
they  drew  near  to  the  light  of  the  Gospel  day.  But  not 
merely  the  righteous  came  to  have  anticipation  of  "some 
better  thing "  awaiting  them  beyond  this  life  yet  to  be 
revealed,  but  the  wicked  also  came  to  have  more  and 
more  distinct  forebodings  of  evil  beyond  the  grave  to 
disturb  their  security  in  sin.  To  the  one,  the  many 
promises  of  Life^  which  abound  in  the  Old  Testament, 
as  well  as  in  the  New,  seemed  like  the  dawning  of 
"light  that  ariseth  in  darkness";  to  the  other,  the 
threatenings  of  Deaths  which  are  equally  numerous, 
were  like  the  rumblings  of  thunder  from  behind  the 
dark  cloud,  which  their  vision  could  not  penetrate.     As 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH   INCURRED.  177 

we  come  clown  the  track  of  ages,  these  intimations  grow 
more  and  more  distinct,  till  they  culminate  under  the 
Gospel,  in  a  full  announcement  of  Resurrection  from  the 
dead,  a  Judgment  to  come,  and  a  Second  Life — one 
that  is  spiritual  and  eternal — for  the  righteous,  and  a 
Second  Death — one  that  knows  no  waking  forever — 
for  the  wicked. 

In  contemplating  the  Divine  Law  and  its  penalty,  as 
given  to  the  Ancient  Hebrews,  through  Moses,  we  should 
bear  in  mind,  that  God  sustained  a  peculiar  threefold 
relation  to  them  ; — that  of  a  Temporal  Ruler  taking  cogni- 
zance of  their  physical  and  social  affairs ;  that  of  a  King 
over  them  in  their  collective  and  national  capacity  ;  and 
that  of  a  Spiritual  Sovereign,  claiming  as  He  does  of  all 
men  the  homage  of  their  hearts.  Now  whether  we  view 
the  sanctions  of  the  Mosaic  law  as  applicable  to  the  in- 
dividual, as  regards  this  life,  or  to  the  Jewish  people 
collectively,  as  a  nation,  or  as  having  a  deeper  spiritual 
significance,  the  rewards  and  the  penalties,  are  one  and 
the  same.  The  same  words.  Life  and  Death  are  used  to 
express  them.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  in  which  of 
the  three  senses  to  apply  them ;  nor  does  it  seem  to  be 
intended  that  we  should  apply  them  exclusively  in  one 
sense.  The  mass  of  the  people,  in  their  darkness  and 
ignorance,  gave  them,  at  first,  no  doubt,  a  temporal  appli- 
cation. But  under  the  instructions  of  Moses,  and  the 
prophets — God-inspired  teachers — they  came  gradually 
to  see  and  feel  that  they  had  a  broader  and  deeper  sig- 
nification than  lay  on  the  surface.  These  words,  "Life," 
and  "  Death,"  which  were  constantly  uttered  in  their 
hearing,  became  pregnant  with  meaning.  They  seemed 
to  reach  beyond  the  present  world,  and  were  full  of  hope 
and  cheer  to  the  righteous,  and  equally  full  of  fearful 
forebodinors  and  of  terror  to  the  wicked. 
8* 


178  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

If  we  contemplate  this  law  in  its  temporal  and  physical 
aspects  only,  we  cannot  fail  to  notice  how  prominently 
this  penalty  of  Death  is  set  forth.  Those  methods  of 
corporal  punishment,  such  as  imprisonment,  torture,  etc., 
that  are  common  to  other  governments,  are  hardly 
known — if  known  at  all  under  the  Mosaic  code.  But 
Death  is  the  one  chief  penalty.  The  penalty  for  Adul- 
tery was  Death;  for  Blasphemy,  Death;  for  Bearing 
False  Witness,  Death;  for  Idolatry,  Death;  for  Incest, 
Death;  for  Man-stealing,  Death;  for  Sabbath-breaking, 
Death;  for  Rape,  Death ;  for  Unchastity,  Death;  for 
Witchcraft,  Deaths  etc.  Death  was  such  an  almost  uni- 
versal penalty  that  those  who  do  not  consider  its  signifi- 
cance regard  it  as  unreasonable  and  barbarous.  The 
mystery  can  only  be  explained  by  the  fact,  that  Jehovah 
was  not  simply  their  Temporal,  but  also  their  Spiritual 
Ruler,  and  that  the  penalty  of  Death  had  a  double  sig- 
nificance, and  was  meant  to  have  an  application  to  both 
this  life,  and  the  life  of  the  world  to  come. 

The  same  is  true,  as  regards  the  penalty  of  sin,  in 
their  national  capacity.  While  the  blessings  of  contin- 
ued life,  and  prosperity  under  the  favor  of  God  were 
promised  to  them  as  a  people,  so  long  as  they  should  be 
loyal  and  obedient  to  their  Heavenly  Ruler ;  the  severest 
curses  ending  in  death  and  utter  extinction  as  a  nation, 
were  threatened  in  case  they  should  turn  away  from 
Him,  and  reject  His  righteous  authority  and  government. 
The  curses  and  calamities  and  miseries,  that  sliould  come 
upon  them,  and  continue  until  they  should  be  utterly  de- 
stroyed and  extinguished  as  a  nation,  are  set  forth  in 
fearful  array,  in  the  closing  chapters  of  the  book  of  Deu- 
teronomy. The  catalogue  is  too  long  to  be  transferred 
to  these  pages.  The  simple  point  to  which  we  wish  to 
call  attention  is  this  :  That  the  awful  calamities  and  mis- 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH    INCURRED.  179 

eries  predicted  were  to  find  their  cuhnination  and  end  in 
their  utter  destruction  as  a  nation.  As  in  the  case  of  our 
first  parents  and  their  posterity,  as  individuals,  sorrow 
and  pain  were  to  mark  their  whole  course  of  departure 
from  God,  till  they  should  return  to  the  dust  fj-om  which 
they  came;  such  would  be  the  sorrowful  downward 
course  of  this  disobedient  people.  These  sorrows  were 
but  the  preludes  to  their  complete  destruction,  and  the 
means  by  which  it  was  accomplished.  They  all  pointed 
and  led  to  that  final  result,  namely  :  utter  ruin  and  ex- 
terinination  and  extinction. 

But  many  of  the  threatenings  of  the  law,  are  evi- 
dently too  broad  and  inclusive  to  admit  of  any  mere 
earthly  or  national  application.  They  are  directed 
against  the  sinning  individual  in  the  totality  of  his  being. 
They  include,  most  evidently  all  that  he  has  or  is,  both 
in  his  physical  and  spiritual  nature,  both  for  this  life  and 
the  life  to  come.  But  the  same  language  is  used  in  any 
and  every  case  alike.  The  sanctions  of  the  law,  whether 
we  regard  it  as  a  natural,  or  civil,  or  spiritual  law  are  the 
same.  They  are  Life  or  Death;  Life  or  Death;  Life 
or  Death.  The  temporal  sanctions  of  God's  law  were 
intended  to  typify  and  enforce  those  that  are  spiritual, 
and  which  are  more  fully  brought  to  light  under  the 
Gospel. 

This  Divine  law  must  be  self -consistent.  Life  and 
Death  are  antithetical  term  s,  and  they  must  be  so  under- 
stood in  whatever  relation  they  are  taken.  Death  must 
be  the  loss  or  ending  or  extinguishment  of  whatever  life 
is  in  question.  If  mere  physical  life  is  spoken  of,  then 
death  must  mean  the  ending  of  all  physical  life.  If  na- 
tional life  is  spoken  of,  then  death  must  mean  the  loss  of 
national  life.  If  psychical  or  spiritual  life  is  spoken  of, 
then  death  must  mean  the  extinguishment  of  all  psychi- 


180  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

cal  life.  If  the  life  of  this  world  is  spoken  of,  then 
death  must  mean  the  loss  of  an  earthly  life.  If  the  life 
of  the  world  to  come,  which  the  Scriptures  tell  us  is 
Immortal,  then  death  must  mean  the  loss  of  the  life  of 
the  world  to  come,  or  of  immortality. 

All  this  is  so  reasonable  and  evident  that  it  would 
seem  unnecessary  to  say  it ;  but  we  are  obliged  to  insist 
on  it  with  special  emphasis,  because  this  is  just  where 
the  advocates  of  the  deathless  nature  of  man  endeavor 
to  break  the  force  of  the  passages  we  are  about  to  cite, 
and  escape  from  the  conclusion  to  which  if  honestly  ac- 
cepted, they  would  inevitably  lead  them.  They  cannot 
but  admit  that  death,  when  predicated  of  man  in  his 
relation  to  this  world,  implies  the  complete  loss  of  all 
sensitive  animal  life.  But  when  the  same  thing  is  predi- 
cated of  him,  in  his  relations  to  the  other  world,  it  cannot 
mean  the  same  thing,  they  say;  and  why  not?  Simply 
because  their  philosophy  of  the  deathless  nature  of  man 
forbids  them  to  understand  it  in  this  sense.  It  compels 
them  to  give  another  meaning  to  this  word,  death.  It 
means  "separation  from  God";  "loss  of  Divine  favor"; 
"  irregular  functional  action  "  ;  "  devitalizedness  "  ;  "a 
state  of  sin  and  misery,"  etc.,  etc.,  anything  and  every- 
thing dreadful,  but  just  what  it  does  actually  mean — 
Death,  the  extinction  of  life  itself. 

We  must  protest  in  the  name  of  truth  and  reason 
against  such  conjuring  with  this  plain  Scriptural  word, 
at  the  bidding  of  a  pagan  philosophy — using  it  like  the 
fabulous  tent  in  the  Arabian  Nights,  which  was  so  elastic, 
that  it  could  serve  for  a  single  man  and  be  carried  in  his 
pocket,  or  stretched  over  a  whole  army,  just  as  conven- 
ience might  require. 

Let  us  now  give  our  attention  to  a  few  of  the  many 
passages  scattered  through  the  Bible,  first  in  the  Old  Tes- 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH   INCURRED.  181 

tament,  and  then  in  the  New,  that  explicitly  set  forth 
this  doctrine  that  Death  and  Destruction  are  the  portion 
of  the  wicked. 

I.     The  Old  Testament. 

The  words  of  warning  "  77^  ow  .sA«7^  surely  c^i^,"  uttered 
by  Jehovah  in  the  beginning ;  then  the  announcement  to 
Adam  of  the  fatal  consequences  of  his  sin,  "  Dust  thou 
art  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return  "  /  then  tlie  record 
of  his  exclusion  from  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  the  reason 
for  it,  '-'•Lest  he  put  forth  his  hand  and  take  also  of  the 
Tree  of  Life  and  Live  Forever,"  upon  which  we  have 
already  sufficiently  commented,  ought  to  be  sufficient  to 
establish  our  thesis,  that  man  cannot  live  forever  in  sin ; 
that  since  the  fall  he  is  altogether  mortal,  and  must  die. 
We  forbear  to  quote  the  many  j^assages  found  in  the 
Pentateuch,  especially  in  Deuteronomy,  in  which  Moses 
warned  and  threatened,  and  entreated  the  Israelites, 
using  the  words  destroy,  and  perish,  and  die,  and  he 
brought  to  naught,  etc.,  with  all  possible  emphasis, — lest 
the  objector  should  say,  they  were  used  only  in  a  politi- 
cal sense.  But  referring  to  the  book  of  Job,  we  find 
such  utterances  as  these  : 

•*  The  candle  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put  out.'* 

"  They  are  as  stubble  before  the  wind,  and  as  chaff  that  the 
storm  drive th  away." 

"  They  shall  lie  down  alike  in  the  dust,  and  the  worms  shall 
cover  them." 

"  The  wicked  is  reserved  to  the  day  of  destruction." 

"  By  the  blast  of  God  they  perish,  and  by  the  breath  of  His 
aostrils  they  are  consumed." 

"  He  shall  perish  forever  like  his  own  dung." 

"He  shall  fly  away  as  a  dream,  and  shall  not  be  found;  yea, 
he  shall  be  chased  away  as  a  vision  of  the  night." 

"If  He  set  His  heart  upon  man,  if  He  gather  unto  Himself 
his  spirit,  and  his  breath,  all  flesh  shall  perish  together,  and 
man  shall  turn  again  to  dust." 


182  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

"  He  cometli  forth  as  a  flower,  and  is  cut  down ;  he  fleeth  al- 
so as  a  shadow,  and  continueth  not." 

"  There  is  hope  of  a  tree  if  it  be  cut  down,  that  it  will  sprout 
again, — but  raan  dieth  and  waste th  away,  yea,  man  giveth  up 
the  ghost,  and  where  is  he  ?  " 

"As  the  waters  fail  from  the  sea,  and  the  flood  decayeth  and 
drieth  up,  so  man  lieth  down  and  riseth  not.  Till  the  heavens 
be  no  more,  they  shall  not  awake  nor  be  raised  out  of  their 
Bleep." 

The  book  of  Psalms  is  full  of  such  passages  as  the 
following : 

*'  The  way  of  the  ungodly  shall  perish." 

**  They  are  like  the  chaff  which  the  wind  driveth  away." 

"  Thou  shalt  destroy  them  that  speak  leasing." 

"The  wicked  shall  be  turned  into  hell  {sheol),  and  all  the 
nations  that  forget  God." 

"  The  wicked  shall  perish,  and  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  shall 
be  as  the  fat  of  lambs;  they  shall  consume;  into  smoke  shall 
they  consume  away." 

"  As  wax  melteth  before  the  fire,  so  let  the  wicked  perish  at 
the  presence  of  God." 

"Forlo;  they  that  are  far  from  Thee  shall  perish.  When 
the  wicked  do  spring  as  the  grass,  and  all  the  workers  of 
iniquity  do  flourish,  it  is  that  they  shall  be  destroyed  forever. ^^ 

"Forlo!  thine  enemies,  O  Lord,  forlo!  thine  enemies  shall 
perish." 

"  For  yet  a  little  while  and  the  wicked  ahall  not  6e." 

"His  breath  goeth  forth;  he  returneth  to  the  earth;  in  that 
very  day  his  thoughts  perish.^^ 

"The  redemption  of  their  soul  [nephesh,  life]  is  precious,  and 
it  [whether  'it'  refers  to  soul  or  redemption  the  thought  is  the 
same]  ceaseth forever.^' 

"  None  of  them  can  by  any  means  redeem  his  brother,  or  give 
to  God  a  ransom  for  him,  that  he  should  still  live  forever  and 
not  see  corruption.'^ 

"  For  he  seeth  that  the  wise  men  die,  likewise  the  fool  and 
the  brutish  person  perish,  and  leave  their  wealth  to  others." 
"  Their  inward  thought  is,  that  their  houses  shall  continue  for- 
ever, and  their  dwelling  places  to  all  generations;  nevertheless, 
man  being  in  honor  abideth  not;  he  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish." 


Chap.  X.]  THE   DEATH  INCITERED.  183 

**  Like  sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave  (sheol),  death  shall  feed 
on  them,  and  the  upright  shall  have  dominion  over  them  in  the 
morning  [there  may  be  a  hint  here  of  a  resurrection,  and  of  an 
eternal  life  for  the  righteous,  but  surely  of  no  such  life  for  the 
wicked,  for  he  goes  on  to  sayj  He  shall  go  to  the  generations 
of  his  fathers;  they  shall  never  see  lights 

*'Man  that  is  in  honor  and  understandeth  not,  is  like  the 
beasts  that  perish." 

"Let  sinners  be  consumed  out  of  the  earth,  and  let  the 
wicked  be  no  more.^*  * 

Solomon  says  in  the  book  of  Proverbs  : 

"  The  lamp  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put  out." 

"  His  destruction  cometh  as  a  whirlwind." 

"  He  that  speaketh  lies  shall  perish." 

"  He  that  being  often  reproved,  hardeneth  his  neck,  shall  sud- 
denly be  destroyed,  and  that  without  remedy." 

"  The  expectation  [tikvah,  thread  of  life]  of  the  wicked  shall 
becutofE." 

"  There  shall  be  no  reward  [or  literally  acharith,  no  hereafter, 
no  futurity]  to  the  wicked.  The  candle  of  the  wicked  shall  be 
put  out"  [what  does  this  mean  but  that  his  life  shall  be  extin- 
guished ?  J 

The  prophets  tell  us  : 

"  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die." 

"  The  destruction  of  transgressors  and  of  sinners  shall  be  to- 
gether, and  they  that  forsake  the  Lord  shall  be  consumed." 

"  He  shall  be  utterly  cut  off." 

"  They  shall  be  as  though  they  had  not  been  "  [can  this  be  any- 
thing short  of  annihilation?] 

"  They  shall  be  as  nothing."     [What  then  will  remain?] 

"  They  that  strive  against  thee  shall  perish." 

"  For  behold  the  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  as  an  oven,  and 
all  the  proud,  yea,  and  all  that  do  wickedly  shall  be  stubble; 
and  the  day  that  cometh,  shall  burn  them  up,  saith  the  Lord 
of  hosts,  that  it  shall  leave  them  neither  root  or  branch"  [can 
any  words  be  stronger  than  these  to  indicate  the  complete  and 
utter  destruction  of  the  wicked?] 

Some  of  these  expressions  may  be  understood  as  hav- 
ing a  mere  temporal  application ;  but  it  is  impossible  to 


184  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

interpret  them  all  in  this  way.  We  who  are  accustomed 
to  read  the  Old  Testament  in  the  light  of  the  New,  can, 
perhaps,  see  a  deeper  meaning  in  them,  than  those  to 
whom  they  were  immediately  addressed ;  but  even  they 
must  have  known  and  felt  that  their  meaning  was  not 
exhausted  this  side  of  the  grave.  When  the  Law  of 
God  was  revealed  to  the  children  of  Israel,  in  such  awful 
terrors  from  ^ount  Sinai,  and  Life  and  Death  were  set 
before  them,  and  they  were  exhorted  to  "  choose  Life 
that  they  might  live'''' ;  when  again,  the  twelve  tribes 
w^ere  set  over  against  each  other,  half  of  them  on  Mount 
Ebal,  and  half  on  Mount  Gerizim,  and  the  one  party  was 
made  to  utter  the  blessings,  and  the  other  the  curses  of 
the  Law,  and  each  to  respond  to  the  other,  "  Amen  " ; 
when  Jeremiah,  the  prophet  solemnly  warns  and  exhorts 
them  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  saying :  "  Behold  I  have 
set  before  you  the  way  of  Life  and  the  way  of  Death  " ; 
again,  when  Ezekiel  expostulates  with  them,  saying  by 
Divine  command  :  "  As  I  live,  saith  the  Lord,  I  have  no 
pleasure  in  the  Death  of  the  wicked,  but  let  the  wicked 
turn  from  his  way  and  live  /  Turn  ye,  turn  ye,  for  why 
will  ye  die  f  "  /  and  when,  on  other  occasions  substantially 
the  same  language  was  addressed  to  them,  they  must 
have  known,  and  felt  that  something  more  than  temporal 
life  and  temporal  death  was  meant.  For  they  could  not 
hope  to  prolong  their  own  life  beyond  its  ordinary  limit, 
nor  to  escape  natural  death.  Surely  these  holy  men 
were  not  mocking  them  with  these  words  without  mean- 
ing. What  else  could  they  have  meant  by  exhorting 
them  to  choose  life  that  they  might  live,  but  the  Eternal 
Life  of  the  world  to  come  which  is  given  to  the  right- 
eous only,  and  which  is  more  fully  brought  to  light  in  the 
Gospel  ?  and  what,  by  that  death  which  they  are  warned 
to  turn  from,  but  the  Second  Death  in  the  all-consuming 


Chap.  X.]  THE   DEATH   INCURRED.  185 

fire  of  Gehenna,  to  which  the  wicked  will  be  consigned 
in  the  day  of  judgment,  of  which  Christ  and  the  JSTew 
Testament  writers  speak  more  clearly  ?  To  this  Testa- 
ment we  now  turn. 

II.     The  New  Testament, 

The  passages  which  foretell,  either  in  direct  language  or 
by  figures  of  speech,  the  utter  and  everlasting  destruc- 
tion of  the  wicked  are  very  numerous.  We  shall  be  able 
to  find  room  for  only  a  portion  of  them.  Those  we  shall 
cite  ought  to  establish  the  doctrine  for  which  we  con- 
tend, if  it  be  possible  to  express  it  in  Scripture  language : 

Matt.  3:  10, 12.  "  Now  also  the  axe  is  laid  unto  the  root  of 
the  trees.  Therefore  every  tree  which  briiigeth  not  forth  good 
fruit  is  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire.  .  .  Whose  fan  is  in 
His  hand,  and  He  will  thoroughly  purge  His  floor,  and  gather 
the  wheat  into  the  garner;  but  He  will  burn  up  the  chaff  with 
unquenchable  fire."  [Fire  is  not  a  preserving,  but  a  consum- 
ing element.  These  fruitless  trees,  this  worthless  chaff,  are 
cast  into  it,  to  be  consumed  utterly.  It  is  called  ''unquench- 
able" because  it  cannot  be  arrested  or  prevented  from  doing  its 
work.  So  the  wicked  are  to  be  burned  up,  utterly  consumed  by 
the  unquenchable  fire  of  Gehenna.] 

10:  28.  '*  Fear  not  them  which  kill  the  body,  but  are  not 
able  to  kill  the  soul  (psuche),  but  rather  fear  Him  who  is  able 
to  destroy  {apolesai}  both  soul  and  body  in  [Gehenna,  not 
Hades]  hell."  [The  first  death  does  not  put  a  final  end  to  the 
man.  But  the  second  death,  which  God  Himself  inflicts  when 
He  casts  the  sinner  into  Gehenna,  destroys  all  there  is  of  him, 
soul  and  body.  This  Gehenna  was  the  place  just  outside  the 
walls  of  Jerusalem,  where  a  fire  was  kept  constantly  burning, 
to  consume  the  offal  of  the  city  that  was  cast  into  it ;  hence  it 
was  a  fit  type  of  that  Gehenna,  or  lake  of  fire,  into  which  the 
wicked  were  to  be  cast,  to  be  utterly  consumed.] 

13:38-40.  "The  field  is  the  world;  the  good  seed  are  the 
children  of  the  kingdom ;  but  the  tares  are  the  children  of  the 
wicked  one;  the  enemy  that  sowed  them  is  the  devil,  the 
harvest  is  the  end  of  the  world,  and  the  reapers  are  the  angels. 
As  therefore,  the  tares  are  gathered  and  burned  in  the  fire ;  so 


186  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   11. 

shall  it  be  in  the  end  of  the  world.  The  Son  of  Man  shall  send 
forth  His  angels,  and  they  shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all 
things  that  offend,  and  them  which  do  iniquity;  and  shall  cast 
them  into  a  furnace  of  fire;  there  shall  be  wailing  and  gnashing 
of  teeth.  Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in  the 
kingdom  of  their  Father."  [What  language  could  be  framed 
to  express  more  definitely  and  vividly  the  utter  destruction  of 
the  wicked  at  the  last  day,  and  the  preservation  of  the  right- 
eous only,  than  this  ?  The  wicked  are  cast  into  this  furnace  of 
fire,  not  to  be  tormented  forever,  but  for  the  same  purpose 
that  the  tares  are  cast  into  it.  That  torment  will  accompany 
their  destruction  and  that  there  will  be  wailing  and  gnashing 
of  teeth  is  not  to  be  doubted,  but  this  is  only  incidental  to  the 
main  object,  which  is  their  miserable  and  complete  destruction.] 

Luke  9:  56.  "For  the  Son  of  Man  is  not  come  to  destroy 
men's  lives,  but  to  save  them."  [Not  in  the  sense  of  saving 
them  from  dying,  but  from  the  utter  loss  of  life.] 

Luke  13:  1-5.  "There  were  present  at  that  season,  some 
that  told  him  of  the  Galileans,  whose  blood  Pilate  had 
mingled  with  the  sacrifices.  Now  Jesus  answering,  said  unto 
them,  "  Suppose  ye  that  these  Galileans  were  sinners  above  all 
Galileans,  because  they  suffered  such  things  ?  I  tell  you  nay ; 
but  except  ye  repent  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish  (osautos 
apoleisthe)  or  those  eighteen  upon  whom  the  tower  of  Siloam 
fell  and  slew  them;  think  ye  that  they  were  sinners  above  all 
men  that  dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ?  I  tell  you  nay;  but  except  ye 
repent  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish  {omoios  apoleisthe).  [This 
cannot  mean  that  they  would  lose  their  lives  in  the  same  way, 
by  the  cruelty  of  Pilate,  or  by  the  falling  of  another  tower,  for 
in  this  case  the  prediction  was  not  fulfilled.  Something  more 
than  a  violent  natural  death  is  meant,  most  evidently.  They 
should  actually  perish,  if  they  did  not  repent.] 

John  15:  5,  6.  "For  without  me  (apart  from  me)  ye  can  do 
nothing.  If  a  man  abide  not  in  me,  he  is  cast  forth  as  a 
branch,  and  men  gather  them  and  cast  them  into  the  fire,  and 
they  are  [tormented  forever  ?  no,  but]  burned."  [There  is  no 
Eternal  Life  out  of  Christ.] 

Acts  3:  23.  "Every  soul  which  will  not  hear  that  Prophet 
(Christ)  shall  be  destroyed  from  among  the  people." 

8:  20.  "Thy  money  perish  with  thee."  [The  same  phrase 
eie  els  apoleian — go  to  destruction  is  predicated  of  both  Simon 
and  his  money  ] 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH   INCUERED.  187 

Rom.  2 :  12.  "  As  many  as  have  sinned  without  law  shall  also 
perish  without  law."  [Observe  the  word  is  perish  not  be  pun- 
ished, as  Dr.  Bartlett  quotes  it  in  one  of  his  essays.  We  are  not 
punished  for  being  the  children  of  Adam,  though  we  have  all 
become  mortal  and  perishable  through  him.  We  are  punished 
only  for  our  own  sins.  But  as  mortal  men,  whatever  be  our 
moral  character,  we  can  only  have  Eternal  Life  through  Christ 
the  Second  Adam — our  Saviour.] 

6:  21.  "  For  the  end  of  those  things  [fleshly  lusts]  is  death.'* 
[Those  who  practice  them  are  even  now  ''  spiritually  dead  "  as 
it  is  called,  but  they  lead  down  to  actual  death  in  the  end.] 

7:  5.  "  For  when  we  were  in  the  flesh,  the  motions  of  sin 
which  were  by  the  law,  did  work  in  our  members  to  bring  forth 
fruit  unto  [misery?  no]  death." 

9:  22.  "  Vessels  of  wrath  fitted  to  destruction."  [Fit  for  noth- 
ing else,  and  unless  saved  by  Christ  this  must  be  their  end.] 

1  Cor.  15:  17.  "If  Christ  be  not  raised,  they  also  which  are 
fallen  asleep  in  Christ  [as  well  as  those  who  have  died  out  of 
Christ]  are  perished.  [This  would  be  the  common  lot  of  all 
men,  had  not  Christ  died  and  risen  again.] 

2  Cor.  4:3.  "  But  if  our  Gospel  be  hid,  it  is  hid  to  them  that 
are  lost."  [In  other  words,  they  from  whom  this  gospel  is 
hidden  are  in  a  lost  or  perishable  condition.] 

Phil.  3:  19.  "  Whose  end  (telos)  is  destruction."  [What  can 
be  more  final  than  the  end?  Whatever  miseries  come  upon 
men  in  the  pathway  of  sin,  the  end  of  it  all  is  destruction — as 
is  said  in  the  next  following  verse.] 

2  Thes.  1:  9.  "Who  shall  be  punished  with  everlasting  de- 
struction,  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  and  from  the  glory  of 
His  power,  when  He  shall  come."  [From  this  we  see  that  ever- 
lasting punishment  is  not  necessarily  everlasting  torment- 
but  utter  destruction  forever.] 

2  Thes.  2:  10.  "With  all  deceivableness  of  unrighteousness 
in  them  that  perish,  because  they  received  not  the  love  of  the 
truth  that  they  might  be  saved." 

1  Tim.  6:  5.  "Foolish  and  hurtful  lusts  which  drown  men 
in  destruction  and  perdition."  [Olethron  kai  apoleian,  two  of 
the  strongest  words  in  the  Greek  language  to  express  utter, 
total,  complete  ruination  or  destruction.] 

Heb.  6:  4-8.  "For  it  is  impossible,  if  they  (who  were  once 
enlightened,  etc.,  etc.),  shall  fall  away,  to  renew  them  again 


188  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

unto  repentance whose  end  is  to  be  burned.^^  [The  Scrip- 
tures again  and  again  assure  us  that  this  is  the  disposition  that 
will  finally  be  made  of  those  who  will  not,  or  cannot  be  saved 
— they  shall  be  burned  up  as  chaff.  J 

10:  26.  '*  For  if  we  sin  willfully  after  we  have  received  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  there  remaineth  no  more  sacrifice  for 
sin,  but  a  certain  fearful  looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  in- 
dignation, which  shall  devour  the  adversaries."  12:  29.  "For 
our  God  is  a  consuming  fire."  ["A  consuming  fire,"  not 
merely  torments  but  consumes.  There  may  be  torment  in  the 
process,  but  it  ends  in  consumption.  It  would  not  be  possible 
to  express  in  language  more  definitely  or  forcibly  the  doctrine 
for  which  we  are  contending — that  the  unsaved  will  be  utterly 
and  forever  destroyed— and  not,  as  our  opponents  say,  kept 
alive,  to  be  eternally  tormented.] 

James  1:  15.  "  Sin  when  it  is  finished  bringeth  forth  death.'* 
[Not  simply  misery;  this  is  its  more  immediate  effect;  but  like 
a  fatal  disease  it  does  not  stop  short  of  death.] 

James  5:  20.  "Let  him  know  that  he  which  converteth  a 
sinner  from  the  error  of  his  way,  shall  save  a  soul  from  death, 
and  hide  a  multitude  of  sins."  [If  unconverted  souls  are  liable 
to  death  they  cannot  be  deathless.] 

2  Pet.  2:  12.  "But  these  as  natural  brute  beasts,  made  to 
be  taken  and  destroyed,  shall  utterly  perish  in  their  own  cor- 
ruption.'' 

3:  7-9.  "But  the  heavens  that  now  are,  and  the  earth,  by 
the  same  word,  have  been  stored  up  for  fire,  being  reserved 
against  the  day  of  judgment  and  destruction  of  ungodly  men." 
"  The  Lord  is  not  slack  concerning  His  promise— but  is  long- 
suffering — not  willing  that  any  should  perish,  but  that  all  should 

come  to  repentance." "  They  wrest  the  Scriptures  to  their 

own  destruction." 

1  John  3:  15.  "No  murderer  hath  eternal  life  abiding  in 
him."     [Then  surely  he  cannot  be  immortal.] 

Rev.  20:  12.  "And  I  saw  the  dead  small  and  great,  stand  be- 
fore God,  and  the  books  were  opened,  and  another  book  was 
opened  which  is  the  Book  of  Life  ;  and  the  dead  were  judged 
out  of  those  things  which  were  written  in  the  book,  according 
to  their  works.  And  the  sea  gave  up  the  dead  which  were  in 
it;  and  death  and  {Hades)  hell  delivered  up  the  dead  which 
were  in  them;  and  they  were  judged  every  man  according  to 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH    INCUBEED.  189 

their  works.  And  Death  and  Hell  { Thanato s  2ind  Hades)  were 
cast  into  the  lake  of  fire.  This  is  the  Second  Death.  And 
whosoever  was  not  found  written  in  the  Book  of  Life  was  cast 
into  the  lake  of  fire."  [It  will  be  observed  that  this  is  after, 
not  during  what  is  called  the  intermediate  state.  Even  were 
we  to  suppose  this  Hadean  or  intermediate  state  to  be  a  state 
of  conscious  suffering  for  the  wicked— here  is  the  end  even  of 
death  and  Hades;  and  all  are  cast  together  into  this  all-consum- 
ing lake  of  fire.  Then  to  assure  us  that  this  is  the  literal  de- 
struction of  death  and  hell,  we  are  told  in  the  verses  immedi- 
ately following  that  there  is  "  no  more  death,  neither  sorrow, 
nor  crying,  neither  shall  there  be  any  more  pain;  for  the  former 
things  have  passed  away.'^  Who  shall  venture  to  say,  in  spite 
of  all  this,  that  Death  and  hell  shall  not  be  destroyed,  and  that 
sorrow  and  crying  and  pain  shall  never  come  to  an  end?] 

This  sad  array  of  Scripture  passages  all  pointing  in 
one  direction,  and  leading  to  one  conclusion,  might  be 
greatly  enlarged.  Indeed,  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
quote  others  of  the  same  tenor,  when  we  come  to  show 
the  contrast  which  is  drawn  between  the  lot  of  the  right- 
eous and  that  of  the  wicked.  But  the  above  ousjht  to 
suffice  for  our  purpose,  if  the  testimony  of  God's  Word  is 
good  for  anything  on  this  question.  If  the  force  of  these 
can  be  evaded,  and  their  meaning  exj^lained  away,  then 
no  doctrine  can  be  proved  from  God's  Word  to  the  satis- 
faction of  those  who  are  opposed  to  it.  For  this  truth 
for  which  we  contend  is  asserted  in  every  way  in  which 
it  is  possible  for  language  to  assert  it,  positively  and  neg- 
atively, literally  and  metaphorically,  by  parable  and  by 
every  variety  of  figure  of  speech.  The  wicked  are  said 
not  only  to  die,  to  perish,  to  be  destroyed,  etc.,  etc.,  but 
also  to  be  burned  up,  like  chaff  and  stubble ;  to  be  utterly 
consumed  root  and  branch ;  to  be  dashed  in  pieces  as  a 
potter'' s  vessel;  to  be  ground  to  powder ;  to  be  thrown 
away  as  bad  fish;  to  be  thrown  down  like  a  house  with' 
out  foundation  /  to  wither  like  a  branch  that  has  been 


190  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

cut  off;  to  consume  away  into  smoke  as  the  fat  of  rams; 
to  perish  like  brutes  in  their  own  corruption  ;  to  become 
as  ashes  under  the  feet  of  the  righteous ;  to  be  devoured; 
to  be  as  nothing  ;  to  be  as  though  they  had  not  been  ;  to 
he  no  more;  not  to  be^  etc.,  etc.  While  these  fearful 
figures  express  pain  and  suffering,  and  extreme  anguish, 
as  was  doubtless  intended,  and  in  some  cases  perhaps, 
prolonged  agony,  they  express  more  than  this ;  they  ex- 
press death  and  utter  destruction  as  the  end^  and  grand 
consummation  of  all  these  inflictions  of  Divine  wrath. 

But  Dr.  Bartlett  and  others  for  whom  he  speaks,  ob- 
ject to  any  such  understanding  of  these  figures.  He 
says  the  principle  is  unsound.  And  why  ?  This  is  his 
reason  : 

"  Its  unsoundness  appears  at  once  from  the  fact  that  it 
necessarily  cuts  off  the  possibility  of  imaging  forth  any 
other  penal  transaction  than  a  transient  one,  and  forcibly 
turns  all  such  representations  into  images  of  extinction 
[of  course  it  does]  for  the  reason  that  every  process  in  a 
temporal  world  is  temporary,  and  each  process  here  that 
is  most  terrific  and  painful  is  incidentally  short-lived." 
{Life  and  Death  Eternal^  p.  284.) 

Yerily  this  is  a  strange  confession  for  one  to  make, 
who  is  sincerely  endeavoring  to  ascertain  what  the  Scrip- 
tures teach  concerning  the  destiny  of  the  wicked!  If 
these  vivid  pictures  of  their  complete  and  utter  destruc- 
tion are  to  be  taken  as  true  pictures — as  meaning  what 
they  seem  to  mean,  why,  his  own  doctrine  of  eternal  sin 
and  suffering  must  certainly  be  false.  But  this  he  can- 
not and  will  not  allow.  By  what  testimony,  then,  we 
ask,  can  his  dogma  be  disproved  ?  In  what  way  would 
they  have  this  doctrine  expressed — if  it  were  true? 
What  language  would  be  strong  enough  and  explicit 
enough  to  convince  him  and  those  of  his  school  ?  They 
admit  that  there  is  no  proof  of  their  dogma  in  philoso- 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH    INCURRED.  191 

pliy,  and  that  their  main  reliance  must  be  on  the  Word 
of  God.  But  when  we  show  them  that  they  have  no 
warrant  whatever  for  it  in  the  Word  of  God,  and  when 
we  cite  to  them  text  after  text  in  long  array,  positively 
contradicting  their  dogma,  they  know  how  to  explain 
them  all  away  to  their  own  satisfaction,  and  perhaps  to 
the  satisfaction  of  those  who  are  not  willing  to  receive 
the  truth  as  it  is  taught  in  the  Scriptures — like  practiced 
acrobats  they  are  able  to  leap  over  any  barrier  that  can 
be  raised,  and  come  down  on  their  feet  as  firmly  as  ever. 
These  Scripture  texts  are  no  more  to  them,  than  the 
paper-covered  hoops,  that  are  put  before  the  equestrian 
performers  in  the  circus.  They  plunge  through  them 
and  drop  into  their  saddles  again,  as  though  there  had 
been  nothing  in  their  way. 

We  quote  to  them  the  words  of  the  Serpent,  "  Ye 
shall  not  surely  die — ye  shall  be  as  gods  knowing  good 
and  evil,"  and  tell  them  that  this  is  exactly  their  doc- 
trine ;  and  they  think  that  we  are  very  ungracious  to 
class  them  with  the  Great  Deceiver.  We  are  indeed 
sorry,  very  sorry  to  do  it ;  but  if  they  will  take  up  his 
doctrine  and  repeat  it  as  their  own,  in  flat  contradiction 
of  God's  Word,  they  must  take  the  consequences.  It  is 
no  fault  of  ours.  What  else  did  Satan  teach  but  this 
very  doctrine — the  immortality  of  the  sinner  ? 

Again  we  show  them,  that  the  Scriptures  are  abso- 
lutely silent  in  regard  to  any  such  doctrine  as  the  natural 
immortality  of'  man — or  the  soul  of  man,  as  they  phrase 
it — and  which  they  declare  to  be  "one  of  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  Christian  system."  And  they 
reply :  "  No  matter ;  it  is  too  evident  to  need  to  be 
asserted  by  these  sacred  writers.  They  "  assume  "  it  to 
be  true.  "  To  them  the  naked  question  of  immortality, 
aside  from  these  relations  and  issues,  is  of  no  account, 
at  all — no  more  than  the  life  of  an  oyster." 


192  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

We  point  then  to  the  Divine  institution  of  sacrifices, 
in  which  the  offerer  is  made  to  acknowledge  the  for- 
feiture of  his  own  life  in  the  death  of  the  victim  he 
offers  to  God  ;  and  to  the  Great  Sacrifice  on  Calvary — of 
which  these  animal  sacrifices  are  the  types,  where  the  Son 
of  God  gave  up  His  own  pure  life  to  redeem  us  from 
death;  and  we  are  told,  that  these  sacrifices  represent 
only  the  death  of  the  body — as  for  the  soul,  it  cannot 
die ;  it  is  immortal. 

Then  we  quote  to  them  the  familiar  text,  "  The  Soul 
that  sinneth  it  shall  die,"  and  a  multitude  of  other  texts 
equally  explicit,  and  they  reply  that  death  when  jjredi- 
cated  of  the  soul  does  not  mean  actual  but  only  spiritual 
death,  which  separates  the  sinner  from  God — a  forlorn, 
wretched,  hopeless  condition  of  being,  in  which  the 
sinner  continues  to  live  or  "exist,"  to  sin  and  suffer 
forever. 

We  then  refer  them  to  another  numerous  class  of 
2>assages,  in  which  sinners  are  represented  as  being  cast 
into  Gehenna  to  be  consumed,  soul  and  body  together ; 
which  declare  that  they  shall  be  burned  up  with  un- 
quenchable fire  as  the  chaff  of  the  threshing  floor,  as  the 
useless  tares  or  as  stubble. 

And  they  say :  "  O,  no,  you  must  not  take  these  fig- 
urative illustrations  in  any  literal  sense;  for  they  are 
'  images  of  extinction^  they  illustrate  '  temporary  pro- 
cesses^ it  necessarily  cuts  us  off  from  the  possibility  of 
applying  them  to  the  case  of  the  soul  that  cannot  die, 
that  cannot  be  consumed,  that  cannot  be  extinguished  so 
that  it  shall  cease  to  sin  and  suffer,  as  we  hold."  So  it 
does,  and  so  it  was  meant  to  do.  The  fact  is,  the  fault 
is  not  in  these  figurative  illustrations,  but  in  the  doctrine 
itself.  If  they  will  accept  neither  the  literal  nor  the 
figurative  language  of  Scripture,  in  all  its  varied  forms 


Chap.  X.]  THE    DEATH   INCURRED.  193 

of  expression,  when  it  contradicts  their  dogma,  then 
what  authority  has  the  Word  of  God  over  them ;  what 
can  it  have  on  this  question  ?  Woukl  it  not  be  more 
honorable  and  more  honest  to  close  this  Sacred  volume 
and  to  acknowledge  what  is  so  evidently  true,  that  they 
hold  this  dogma  as  a  self-evident  truth,  that  no  testi- 
mony whatever  can  disprove  ? 


Note.  Since  the  above  chapter  \Yas  written,  the  long-ex- 
pected New  Congregational  Creed, — prepared  and  concurred  in 
by  twenty -three  out  of  a  committee  of  twenty-Jive  Doctors  of 
Divinity,  selected  for  this  purpose,  by  the  authority  of  the  Tri- 
ennial Congregational  Convention  as  representing  all  the 
different  shades  of  belief  in  their  denomination,  after  more 
than  three  years  of  consultation, — has  been  given  to  the  public. 
Of  course,  as  a  compromise,  it  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
express  definitely  and  satisfactorily  the  peculiar  views  of  any 
one  individual.  But  we  had  hoped  that  these  learned  doctors, 
under  the  circumstances,  would  content  themselves  with  a 
much  shorter  and  more  comprehensive  creed,  and  that  it  would 
be  couched,  as  far  as  practicable,  in  Scripture  terms.  But  the 
use  of  Scriptural  phraseology  seems  to  have  been  studiously 
avoided;  and  in  all  its  twelve  Articles  we  find  no  recognition 
whatever  of  death  as  the  penaltj'-  of  sin;  nor  in  professedly 
giving  the  true  import  of  the  sacrament  of  Baptism,  is  its  real 
significance  as  symbolizing  the  death  and  resurrection  of'  the 
believer  to  a  new  life  through  redemption  by  Christ  even  al- 
luded to;  nor  in  its  definition  of  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  is  there  any  intimation  that  it  points  to  Christ  as  the 
Source  and  Sustainer  of  that  Life,  and  yet  these  are  prime, 
fundamental  principles  of  the  Gospel  as  we  underst  md  it.  But 
the  criticism  which  our  topic  more  especially  suggests,  relates 
to  the  last  clause  of  the  twelfth  Article,  which  reads  as  follows: 
''  We  believe  ...  in  a  final  judgment,  the  issues  of  which  are 
everlasting  punishment  and  everlasting  life."  This  clause  is 
apparently  quoted  from  Matt.  2"):  46,  though  the  precise  lan- 
guage of  neither  the  common  nor  the  revised  version  is  fol- 
9 


194  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

lowed ;  for  there  is  no  other  clause  like  it  in  all  the  Scriptures. 
If  these  words  of  our  Lord  had  been  intended  to  describe 
the  issues  of  the  last  judgment  of  individuals  after  the  resur 
rection,  we  may  well  understand  this  "  everlasting  punishment " 
of  sinners  to  be  the  "  punishment  of  everlasting  destruction," 
of  which  Paul  speaks  (2  Thess.  1:  9).  But  it  is  most  evidently 
the  punishment  of  the  nations  at  His  Second  Coming,  of  which 
Christ  is  here  speaking.  But  we  object  to  the  appropriation  of 
this  apparent  phraseology  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  creed,  to 
express  the  final  doom  of  individual  sinners  consequent  on  the 
resurrection,  not  merely  because  the  text  had  no  such  original 
application,  nor  because  this  antithesis  of  everlasting  punish- 
ment and  everlasting  life  is  nowhere  else  found  in  the  Word  of 
God,  but  especially  because  it  overlooks  and  ignores  the  real 
contrast  which  is  constantly  and  everywhere  else  made  in  the 
Scriptures  between  the  saved  and  the  lost.  It  is  one  of  Death 
and  Eternal  Life  uniformly  throughout  the  Word  of  God. 
No  careful  reader  of  this  Word  can  have  failed  to  notice  this ; 
and  no  one,  even  if  he  were  determined  to  put  upon  these 
crucial  words  the  ethical  sense  of  misery  and  happiness  which 
our  traditional  philosophy  requires,  need  make  any  objection 
to  the  use  of  this  Scriptural  antithesis.  If  then,  the  creed  had 
read — '*  The  issues  of  which  are  (thanatos  kal  aidnios  zoe)  (there 
is  no  such  phraseology  as  everlasting  death,  but  simply)  Death 
and  Everlasting  Life,"  it  would  have  conformed  exactly  to  the 
teaching  of  Scripture  on  this  pt)int,  and  no  one,  however  he 
might  be  disposed  to  interpret  these  words,  could  have  made 
any  reasonable  objection. 

But  these  cautious  creed-framers,  in  their  compromising 
spirit,  have  so  far  yielded  to  the  mediaBval  dogma  of  endless 
torment  which  is  still  found  in  our  obsolescent  symbols,  as  to 
refrain  from  the  use  of  this  eminently  Scriptural  antithesis, 
not  only  in  describing  the  issues  of  the  final  judgment,  but 
they  have  refrained  from  the  employment  of  this  word  Death 
in  any  part  of  their  creed,  as  expressing  the  Divine  penalty  of 
sin ;  and  from  intimating  that  the  believer  is  indebted  to  re- 
demption in  Christ  for  his  hope  of  Eternal  Life  I 


CHAPTER  XL 

The  Life  Giveit — The  Unspeakable  Gift. 

In  the  foregoing  chapter  we  have  been  considermg  the 
destructive  effect  of  sin,  and  the  necessary  mortality  of 
sinful  man ;  not  because  this  is  our  main  theme,  but  as  a 
kind  of  background  to  our  main  theme,  which  is  that  of 
Life  Eternal  through  Christ.  It  was  the  more  impor- 
tant to  take  this  view,  inasmuch  as  the  traditional  error 
of  immortality  for  all  men  without  any  Saviour  has 
painted  this  background  in  such  false  and  lurid  colors,  as 
greatly  to  damage  and  obscure  the  Gospel  picture  that 
rests  on  it,  and  almost  obliterate  the  real  distinction  be- 
tween the  lot  of  the  saved  and  the  unsaved,  which  is  pre- 
eminently one  of  Life, — Life  without  end,  a  life  of  purity 
and  blessedness  through  Christ  and  with  Christ  in  His 
everlasting  kingdom. 

It  is  only  as  we  come  to  recognize  the  true  condition 
of  sinful  man,  and  his  consequent  destiny,  as  one,  not 
simply  of  suffering,  but  of  death  and  destruction,  that 
the  Gospel  of  our  salvation  stands  out  in  its  real  bright- 
ness and  glory.  Hence  the  Word  of  God,  in  the  very 
beginning  spreads  before  us  an  account  of  the  fall  of  our 
first  parents  from  their  original  holiness,  and  the  sad  and 
rrowful  and  mortal  doom  which  they  brought  upon 
emselves  and  their  posterity,  as  a  kind  of  background 
on  which  the  glorious  Gospel  of  our  salvation  is  to  be 
painted.  First  we  have  the  Law  with  its  fearful  penalty 
of  Death,  and  then  the  Gospel  with  its  offer  of  Life. 

195 


i 


196  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

Even  in  the  sentence  of  condemnation  there  were  inti- 
mations of  mercy.  Behind  the  dark  cloud  there  were 
streaks  of  light.  Voices  of  hope  and  cheer  were  heard 
mingling  with  the  thunders  of  Sinai.  The  darkness  of 
the  long  night  that  preceded  the  dawning  of  the  day,  was 
relieved  by  the  shining  of  the  stars  in  the  firmament. 
Long  before  the  rising  of  the  Sun,  there  were  many  who 
waited  and  watched  for  His  appearing. 

The  New  Testament  is  not  simply  a  fuller  and  clearer 
revelation  of  Divine  truth  than  the  Old.  It  is  all  this ; 
but  more.  It  is  a  new  revelation.  As  in  nature  we  find 
one  stage  following  another  in  the  work  of  creation,  each 
higher  than  the  one  to  which  it  succeeds ;  so  is  it  in  the 
revelation  of  Divine  truth.  As  in  nature  each  grade, 
wliile  it  includes  all  that  is  in  the  grades  below,  and  ex- 
hibits it  in  greater  perfection,  contains  sometliing  more 
that  especially  distinguishes  it  from  those  grades  ;  so  the 
New  Testament,  while  it  embraces  all  the  truths  of  the 
Old,  and  reveals  them  more  clearly,  contains  other  and 
higher  truths  that  distinguish  it,  as  a  Neio  Revelation. 
And  still  further ;  as  every  inferior  grade  overlaps  that 
which  is  to  follow,  and  foreshadows  its  peculiar  charac- 
teristics, and  perhaps,  contains  them  all  in  a  rudimental 
state ;  so  the  Old  Testament  contains,  in  an  undeveloped 
form;  in  its  types  and  symbols,  in  its  prophecies  and 
promises,  hints,  more  or  less  clear,  of  the  truths  yet  to 
be  revealed  in  the  New.  But  these  two  Revelations  are 
separated  from  each  other  by  a  line  as  broad  and  distinct 
as  that  which  separates  any  two  grades  in  nature.  If  it 
be  asked,  what  is  that  "  something  more,"  that  higher 
truth  which  is  peculiar  to  the  New  Testament,  and  which 
gives  it  pre-eminence  over  the  Old?  we  rei:>ly  without 
hesitation :  It  is  the  Revelation  of  Life  and  Immortality 
for  mortal  man  by  a  new  birth  and  a  resurrection  from 


Chap.  XI.]  THB   LIFE   GIVEN".  197 

the  dead ;  and  the  Destruction  of  all  evil  through  the 
Almighty  power  of  the  Son  of  God  our  Saviour. 

But  this  is  not  only  a  new  and  higher  revelation,  but  the 
Life  itself  is  a  new  and  higher  Life,  and  he,  to  whom  it 
is  given,  is  a  new  creature ;  "  If  any  man  be  in  Christ  he 
is  a  new  creature  "  ;  not  new,  in  some  unreal  metaphori- 
cal sense,  denoting  a  reformation  of  character,  and  the 
regulation  of  his  conduct  by  better  motives.  It  means 
all  this,  but  more.  He  actually  begins  to  be  a  new  crea- 
ture.* There  is  the  ingeneration  of  a  new  life  within 
him  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  It  is  as  superior  to  the  old 
Adamic  life,  as  it  is  more  enduring.  The  one  is  natural, 
that  is — psuchical  and  hastens  to  death;  the  other  is  Di- 
vine and  immortal.  "  That  is  not  first  which  is  spiritual, 
but  that  which  is  natural,  and  afterward  that  which  is 
spiritual."  This  new  life,  begotten  not  of  flesh  and 
blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  man  but  of  God,  may  be  faint 
and  feeble  at  first,  like  the  life  of  an  unborn  infant,  but 
when  this  body  of  corruption  shall  be  cast  off,  it  will, 
in  due  time,  tajke  to  itself  a  new  spiritual  body,  like  unto 
Christ's  own  glorious  body,  and  the  subject  of  it  will  rise 
to  meet  Him,  at  His  coming  and  to  take  his  place  in  His 
everlasting  kingdom,  f 

*  "  If  mnn  were  by  natural  constitution  possessed  of  immor- 
tality or  eternal  life,  then  would  we  expect  to  find  the  Scrip- 
tures insisting  only  on  a  modification  of  that  life — a  change  of 
its  dispositions  and  new  direction  of  its  powers  as  necessary 
to  his  seeing  this  kingdom  of  God— Whereas,  if  it  be  true  that 
immortal  life  is  altogether  distinct  from  natural  life— a  new 
life,  and  from  another  source,  then  on  the  other  hand,  we  would 
expect  to  hear  of  a  new  generation,  and  to  find  it  written,  *  Ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of 
God.'  This  is  what  we  find  always  insisted  on  in  this  Gospel." 
Christian  Life.    W.  de  Bubgh. 

t  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  chapter. 


198  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

There  are  many  hints,  more  or  less  clear,  of  this  new 
Divine  Life  scattered  all  through  the  Old  Testament. 
The  hope  of  it  sustained  and  encouraged  the  faith  of  the 
patriarchs.  Moses  and  the  prophets  exhorted  to  obedi- 
ence and  trust  in  God  in  view  of  it.  David  and  the 
other  psalmists  made  it  the  theme  of  their  songs  and 
prayers  and  praises.  But  only  in  the  New  Testament,  is 
it  distinctly  revealed  as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ,  by  whose  death  and  resurrection  it  is  assured. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us,  who  live  under  the  full  blaze 
of  the  Gospel  to  go  back  and  cull  out  of  the  records  of 
the  old  dispensation  these  anticipatory  evidences  of  God's 
gracious  purpose  to  give  to  mortal  man  an  immortal  life 
by  a  new  birth  and  a  resurrection  from  the  dead.  After 
the  sun  itself  begins  to  shine,  we  may  dispense  with  the 
use  of  candles. 

We  come,  at  once,  then,  to  the 

New  Testament. 

The  Gospel  of  John  opens  with  the  declaration,  "  In 
Him  was  Life  {zbe)  and  the  Life  {zbe)  was  the  light  of 
men."  He  came,  not  to  bear  witness  of  that  light,  as  did 
John  the  Baptist,  but  as  the  Life-giver  Himself.  "  The 
Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life,"  the  very  Source  and  Foun- 
tain of  Eternal  Life.  The  first  Adam  was,  at  best,  but 
a  living  soul  (psuchen  zosan)  the  last  Adam  was — infi- 
nitely more, — a  "  quickening  spirit,"  {j>neu'ma  zoopoioun 
life-giving  spirit). 

In  our  natural  progenitor,  was  only  the  psuche  life, 
which  was  transitory  and  mortal ;  and  we  could  receive 
by  natural  generation  from  him  nothing  higher  than  this. 
In  our  Spiritual  progenitor,  was  the  zbe  Life,  which  is 
spiritual  and  undying,  and  this  is  the  Life  which  He 
gives  in  regeneration.  The  distinction  between  these 
two  lives,  the  natural  Adamic  life,  which  is  animal  and 


Chap.  XI.]  THE    LIFE    GIVEN.  199 

transitory,  and  the  supernatural  life,  which  is  spiritual 
and  eternal,  is  everywhere  clearly  and  definitely  drawn, 
and  preserved  throughout  the  New  Testament  Scriptures. 
These  two  words,  psuche  and  zoe  are  used  to  designate 
them.  It  is  a  great  pity  that  we  have  not  two  words 
in  our  English  version,  as  in  the  Latin,  anima  and  vita^ 
to  represent  them.  By  translating  them  both  by  the  one 
English  word,  "  Life,"  this  distinction  has  been  greatly 
obscured,  and  the  ordinary  reader  loses  sight  of  it  almost 
entirely,  or  at  best,  he  comes  to  suppose  that  it  is  a  mere 
ethical  or  tropical  one  ;  that  the  same  word,  life,  is  some- 
times employed  to  designate  man's  natural  life — all  the 
life  he  is  supposed  ever  to  have — and  sometimes  the 
purity  and  blessedness  of  that  life ;  whereas  the  real 
Gospel  distinction  is  as  actual  and  broad  as  it  possibly 
can  be.  There  are  two  separate  progenitors  ;  two  sepa- 
rate births  ;  and  two  separate  destinies.  We  would  be 
glad  so  to  emphasize  this  cardinal  idea,  which  the  tradi 
tional  philosophy  has  practically  ignored,  as  to  give  to  our 
citations  the  force  and  influence  they  ought  to  have  over 
the  mind  of  the  reader. 

This  is  the  grand  truth  our  Lord  would  have  taught 
to  Nicodemus  in  the  very  beginning  of  His  ministry  : 

John  3.  "  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  thee,  except  a  man  be 
born  (or  rather  be  begotten  gennao)  again  he  cannot  see  the  king- 
dom of  God.  That  which  is  born  {begotten)  of  the  fieah  is  flesh  ; 
and  that  which  is  born  {begotten)  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit.  As  Mo- 
ses lifted  up  the  Serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the 
Son  of  Man  be  lifted  up,  that  whosoever  believe th  in  Him, 
should  not  perish  but  have  Eternal  Life.  For  Qod  so  loved  the 
world  that  He  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  be- 
lieveth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  Everlasting  Life. 
For  God  sent  not  His  Son  into  the  world  to  condemn  the  world, 
but  that  the  world  through  Him  might  be  saved.^^  [This  word 
sozo,  soter,  soteria,  usually  translated  save,  Saviour,  salvation 
in  our  version,  is  rendered  (as  we  are  told)  in  the  Peshito  or 


200  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

Syriac  version  (which  is  undoubtedly  the  oldest  version,  if  not 
actually,  as  some  think,  the  original  text  of  this  Gospel) — to 
GIVE  LIFE,  Life-giver,  Life.  We  have  not  this  version  at 
hand,  to  refer  to,  but  it  will  be  seen  how  this  rendering  throws 
great  light  on  the  meaning  of  these  Scriptural  terms,  to  save, 
salvation,  Saviour.  The  idea  is  not  a  rescue  from  sin  and  mis- 
ery merely,  but  from  Death,  the  conferring  of  Life,  Eternal 
Life,  upon  mortal  men.] 

Nicodemus  had,  like  the  Pharisees  generally,  vague  no- 
tions of  a  life  beyond  the  present,  but  it  was  only  the 
prolongation  of  man's  natural  life  into  another  state,  not 
a  new  life  but  the  same  old  life  of  the  soul,  after  it  had 
escaped  from  the  body;  such  a  ghostly  kind  of  life  as 
the  philosophy  he  had  imbibed  from  the  pagan  world  had 
taught  him  to  believe  in,  and  such  as  this  same  j^hilosophy 
now  teaches.  But  he  had  no  conception  of  that  new 
spiritual  life,  which  comes  only  by  a  new  spiritual  birth, 
and  which  is  the  only  foundation  for  any  good  hope  of 
Immortality.  He  was  destitute  of  that  spiritual  princi- 
ple by  which  he  could  conceive  of  it.  And  so  are  natural 
men  generally,  and  even  many  religious  teachers  at  the 
present  day.  "  The  natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  because  they  are  spiritually  dis- 
cerned ;  for  they  are  foolishness  unto  him  ;  neither  can  he 
know  them." 

This  is  the  doctrine  our  Lord  attempted  to  teach  to  the 
woman  of  Samaria,  at  the  well.  But  her  carnal  mind, 
unillumined  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  could  not  rise  to  the 
apprehension  of  these  spiritual  and  eternal  verities.  She 
understood  the  figures  by  which  Christ  would  represent  it 
only  in  their  lower  sense,  or  at  best,  only  in  some  such 
mythical,  ethical,  unreal  sense,  as  all  carnal  minds  now 
put  upon  them.  But  Scriptural  figures  are  employed  to 
represent  realities  and  not  other  figurative  ideas ;  this 
spiritual  life,  of  which  Christ  spoke  is  not  an  unreal  life 


Chap.  XI.]  THE   LIFE   GIVEN".  201 

but   an  actual  life  and  even  more  real  if  possible,  and 
more  substantial  than  the  natural  life  of  man. 

John  4.  "If  thou  knewest  the  gift  of  God  [Eternal  Life 
through  Christ]  and  who  it  is  that  saith  unto  thee  '  Give  me  to 
drink,'  thou  wouldst  have  asked  Him,  and  He  would  have  given 
thee  living  water.  Whosoever  drinketh  of  this  water  shall 
thirst  again;  but  whosoever  drinketh  of  the  water  that  I 
shall  give  him,  shall  never  thirst;  but  the  water  that  I  shall 
give  him,  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up  into 
Ecerlasting  LifeJ^ 

It  was  of  this  Life  that  Christ  spoke  in  His  discourse 
with  the  Hebrews,  after  healing  the  man  at  the .  pool  of 
Bethesda.  But  their  minds  were  too  dark  and  groveling 
to  apprehend  His  meaning. 

John  5.  "  For  as  the  Father  raiseth  up  the  dead  and  quick- 
eneth  them,  even  so  the  Son  quickeneth  whom  He  will.  Yerily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  you,  He  that  heareth  my  words  and  believeth 
on  Him  that  sent  Me,  hath  Everlasting  Life  and  shall  not  come 
into  condemnation,  but  is  passed  from  Death  unto  Life.  For  as 
the  Father  hath  Life  in  Himself,  so  hath  He  given  to  the  Son  to 
have  Life  in  Himself. 

'*  Marvel  not  at  this:  for  the  hour  is  coming  in  the  which  all 
that  are  in  the  graves  shall  hear  His  voice  and  shall  come 
forth:— they  that  have  done  good  unto  the  resurrection  of  Life 
and  they  that  have  done  evil,  unto  the  resurrection  of  damna- 
tion (condemnation  to  death). 

"  Search  the  Scriptures,  for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have  Eternal 
Life  [or  rather  the  assurance  of  it,  but  you  will  find  no  assur- 
ance of  this,  excepting  through  Me,  as  your  Life-giver].  For 
they  are  they  which  testify  of  me  ;  and  ye  will  not  come  unto 
Me  that  ye  might  have  Life." 

We  desire  to  call  especial  attention  to  the  passage  just 
quoted,  as  absolutely  conclusive  of  the  doctrine  for 
which  we  are  contending, — of  Eternal  Life  only 
THROUGH  Christ.  The  doctrine  of  a  future  life  was 
not  unknown  to  the  ancient  Hebrews.  It  was  so  far  re- 
vealed in   their   Scriptures,  that  they  had   come   very 

9* 

i 


202  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  IL 

generally  to  accept  it.  But  under  the  influence  of  the 
Grecian  Philosophy,  by  which  this  religion  had  become 
corrupted,  they  had  come  to  hold  it  as  a  philosophical 
doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  psuche  or  natural  life 
of  man,  or — if  in  any  special  sense, — as  their  peculiar  in- 
heritance as  the  children  of  Abraham,  and  not  as  the 
special  gift  of  God's  grace  through  a  Saviour,  and  only 
to  be  received  by  a  new  birth.  Hence,  when  Christ 
showed  them  how  false  were  their  hopes  of  immortality, 
excepting  through  Himself ;  and  that  there  was  nothing 
in  their  Scriptures — the  Divine  authority  of  which  they 
conceded — to  justify  their  hopes,  they  were  offended,  as 
men  are  now  offended  by  the  same  doctrine ;  but  if  they 
will  "  Search  the  Scriptures,"  they  will  find  no  doctrine 
of  immortality  for  man,  but  through  Christ,  either  in  the 
Old  or  New  Testament. 

The  same  truth  He  preached  after  the  miracle  of  the 
"  loaves  and  the  fishes  "  : 

John  6.  "  Labor  not  for  the  meat  that  perisheth,  but  for  the 
meat  which  endureth  unto  Everlasting  Life,  which  the  Son  of 
man  shall  give  you.  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life :  he  that  cometh  to 
Me  shall  never  hunger,  and  he  that  believeth  on  Me  shall  never 
thirst. 

"This  is  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Me,  that  every  one  that 
seetli  the  Son  and  believeth  on  Him  may  have  Eoerlasting  Life, 
and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day.  Verily,  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  he  that  believeth  on  Me  hath  Everlasting  Life. 

*'  I  am  the  Bread  of  Life.  Your  fathers  did  eat  manna  in  the 
wilderness  and  are  dead.  This  is  the  Bread  that  cometh  down 
from  heaven,  that  a  man  may  eat  thereof  and  not  die. 

"  I  am  the  Living  Bread  which  came  down  from  heaven:  If 
a  man  eat  of  this  Bread  he  shall  live  forever.  And  the  Bread 
which  I  shall  give  is  my  flesh,  which  I  give  for  the  life  of  the 
world. 

"Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  except  ye  eat  the  flesh  of  the 
Son  of  man,  and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no  Life  [zoen)  in  you. 
Whoso  eateth  my  flesh  and  drinketh  my  blood  hath  Eternal 
Life,  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day. 


Chap.  XI.]  THE   LIFE   GIVEN-.  203 

**  As  the  living  Father  hath  sent  Me,  and  I  live  by  the  Father, 
so  he  that  eateth  Me,  even  he  shall  live  by  Me.  This  is  the 
Bread  which  came  down  from  heaven;  not  as  your  fathers  did 
eat  manna  and  are  dead.  He  that  eateth  of  this  Bread  Shall 
Live  Forever.  It  is  the  Spirit  that  quickeneth  (giveth  this 
new  life),  the  flesh  profiteth  nothing.  The  words  that  I  speak 
unto  you,  they  are  Spirit  and  they  are  Life." 

Our  Lord  is  not  here  speaking  of  happiness  and  misery 
hereafter,  nor  of  holiness  and  sin,  but  of  Life  and  Death. 
As  the  life  of  the  body,  the  psuche  life,  is  sustained  by- 
material  food,  so  this  higher  zoe  life,  this  spiritual  life, 
which  He  gives,  must  have  its  spiritual  food  from  the 
same  source.  This  former  life  cannot  always  be  sus- 
tained even  by  food  supernaturally  given  from  heaven. 
Their  fathers  who  ate  of  the  manna  in  the  wilderness 
are  dead.  They  too,  must  die,  if  they  have  no  higher 
princij^le  of  life  ingenerated  within  them.  This  new 
life  is  received  only  from  Him  and  can  be  maintained 
only  by  the  closest  union  with  Him.  To  such  a  life 
there  is  no  end.  The  whole  chapter  is  remarkable  for 
the  constant  reiteration  of  this  one  great  truth.  But 
alas,  they  could  not  or  would  not,  receive  it.  The  idea 
of  the  natural  immortality  of  the  psuche  had  taken  such 
firm  hold  of  their  minds,  as  to  close  them  utterly  to  this 
great  Gospel  truth  of  Life  and  Immortality  by  a  new 
birth  through  a  Divine  Saviour. 

Not  merely  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  but  many  of 
His  followers  "  were  offended  at  His  doctrine."  "  From 
that  time  many  of  Sis  disciples  went  back  and  walked 
no  more  with  Him.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  the  twelve, 
Will  ye  also  go  away?  Then  Simon  answered  Him, 
Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 
Eternal  LifeP 

How  many  there  are  of  Christ's,  so-called,  disciples 
even  now,  who  cannot,  or  will  not,  accept  of  this  teach- 


204  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

ing.  It  is  too  humiliating  to  their  natural  pride ;  it  is 
too  directly  opposed  to  their  psychological  notions  of  the 
nature  of  man ;  it  is  too  much  at  variance  with  the  pop- 
ular traditions  of  the  church  to  be  accepted  by  them. 
They  are  quite  willing  to  receive  Christ  as  a  Great 
Teacher  sent  from  God ;  as  a  Saviour  from  eternal  sin 
and  sufiering ;  as  a  Giver  of  purity  and  joy  and  blessed- 
ness forever,  to  "  immortal  man  "  ;  but  not  as  a  Saviour 
from  actual  and  eternal  death  ;  not  as  a  Giver  of  Eternal 
Life.  How  shall  they  be  made  to  understand,  or  rather 
to  receive  this  great  and  glorious  truth  excepting  by  the 
Spirit  of  God?*  May  it  please  God  to  so  bless  our 
humble  efforts  to  this  end,  that  they  may  say  with  Peter, 
"Lord,  to  whom  shall  we  go?  Thou  hast  the  words  of 
Eternal  LifeP 

John  8:  "  Then  said  Jesus  uato  them  again,  I  go  my  way 
and  ye  shall  seek  Me  and  shall  die  in  your  sins.  Whither  I  go 
ye  cannot  come.  Ye  are  from  beneath;  lam  from  above.  Ye 
are  of  this  world;  I  am  not  of  this  world.  I  said  therefore 
unto  you,  ye  shall  die  in  your  sins;  for  if  ye  believe  not  that  I 
am  He,  ye  shall  die  in  your  sins. 

"  Verily,  verily  I  say  unto  you,  if  a  man  keep  my  sayings  he 
shall  never  see  deat^  "  [or  rather  not  see  death  forever,  eis  ton 
aionay  that  is  the  death  from  which  there  is  no  resurrection,  the 
second  death,  eternal  death]. 

Again  He  teaches  the  same  truth  under  the  allegory 
of  the  Door  and  the  Good  Shepherd  : 

John  10:  "I  am  the  Door;  by  Me,  if  any  man  enter  in  he 
shall  be  saved,  and  shall  go  in  and  out  and  find  pasture.  The 
thief  Cometh  not  but  for  to  steal  and  to  kill  and  to  destroy.  I 
am  come  that  they  might  have  Life  and  that  they  might  have  it 
abundantly.  [The  word  is  not  more  abundantly  perisooteroSy  as 
in  our  common  version,  but  perissos,  super-abundantly.] 

*An  unknown  correspondent,  who  has  recently  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  this  glorious  ti*uth,  writes:  "I  verily  believe 
it  to  be  a  revelation  from  the  Lord,  and  that  no  man  can  or  will 
receive  it,  unless  it  be  given  him  from  above." 


Chap.  XI.]  THE   LIFE   GIVEN".  205 

"  I  am  the  ^ood  shepherd  and  know  my  sheep,  and  am  known 
of  mine.  As  the  Father  knoweth  Me,  even  so  know  I  the 
Father  and  lay  down  my  life  \psuche,  natural  life,  not  zde,  life] 
for  the  sheep.  And  other  sheep  have  I  which  are  not  of  this 
fold.  Them  also  must  I  bring,  and  they  shall  hear  my  voice, 
and  there  shall  be  one  fold  and  one  shepherd.  My  sheep  hear 
my  voice  and  I  know  them,  and  they  follow  Me.  And  I  give 
unto  them  Eternal  Life,  and  they  shall  never  perish,  neither 
shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  my  hand." 

This  was  the  burden  of  His  instructions  to  Mary  and 
Martha  at  the  grave  of  Lazarus.  They  were  not  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  great  Gospel  doctrines  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion, the  General  Judgment,  and  the  Life  to  come ;  for 
they  had  been  under  the  special  teaching  of  the  Master. 
But  their  notions  were  very  confused  and  imperfect.  So 
when  Jesus  said  to  Martha,  "Thy  brother  shall  rise 
again,"  Martha  said  unto  him :  "  I  know  that  he  shall 
rise  again  in  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day."  Jesus 
said  unto  her,  "Z  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life. 
He  that  believeth  on  Me  though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall 
he  live,  and  whosoever  liveth  [or  is  alive  at  my  second 
coming]  shall  never  die." 

Those  who  have  died  a  natural  death  believing  on 
Him,  shall  be  raised,  and  those  believers  who  shall  be 
alive  at  His  coming  again  shall  be  changed  without 
dying,  and  they  all  together  shall  enter  upon  that  life 
which  shall  never  end :  over  such  the  second  death  hath 
no  power. 

The  same  doctrine  is  expressed  in  His  intercessory 
prayer : 

John  17:  "These  words  spake  Jesus,  and  lifted  up  His  eyes 
to  heaven  and  said :  Father  My  hour  is  come ;  glorify  thy  Son, 
that  thy  Son  may  glorify  Thee.  As  Thou  hast  given  Him  power 
over  all  flesh,  that  He  should  give  Eternal  Life  to  as  many  as 
Thou  hast  given  Him.  And  this  is  Eternal  Life,  that  they 
may  know  Thee,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  Thou  hast  sent." 


206  THE  UNSPEAKABo:  GIFT.  [Part  II. 

The  above  citations  are  all  from  the  Gospel  of  John. 
We  might  cite  other  similar  passages  from  this  Gospel. 
We  might  quote  also  not  a  few,  of  like  import,  from  the 
other  three  Evangelists,  but  the  Gospel  of  John  is  more 
full  on  this  subject.  It  is  the  main  theme  of  his  Gospel, 
as  it  is  also  of  his  Epistles.  In  the  first  six  chapters  of 
this  Gospel,  he  declares  over  and  over  again,  no  less  than 
twenty -eight  times,  and  more  than  fifty  times  in  all  his 
writings,  that  Christ  is  the  only  Source  of  Eternal  Life. 
If  these  citations  already  given  do  not  suftice  to  establish 
this  doctrine,  no  array  of  texts  would  suffice.  Is  it  possi- 
ble that  this  Eternal  Life — of  which  our  Lord  speaks  so 
earnestly  and  with  such  constant  reiteration,  as  the  boon 
He  came  to  bring  to  dying  men,  to  provide  which  He 
gave  up  His  own  life,  and  which  He  freely  offers  to  all 
who  will  believe  on  Him — is  not  truly  Eternal  Life  after 
all ;  but  only  a  certain  improved  condition  of  life,  pure 
and  blissful  indeed,  but  only  an  attribute  of  the  Eternal 
Life  which  is  the  portion  of  all  men  ?  Can  it  be,  that 
He  meant  by  these  high-sounding  words  nothing  more 
than  that  He  would  engraft  upoft  the  naturally  immortal 
life  of  His  people,  certain  qualities  of  purity  and  blessed- 
ness that  should  endure  forever,  while  those  who  refused 
to  believe  on  Him,  would  have  to  spend  their  immortal 
lives  in  sin  and  misery  ?  Is  the  distinction  which  He 
draws  between  believers  and  unbelievers  a  mere  ethical 
and  figurative  one  ?  Can  it  be  possible  that  any  true  be- 
liever in  Christ,  or  any  one  who  accepts  His  words  as 
true,  should  claim  as  his  own  inalienable  prerogative  this 
immortality,  which  He  "  who  only  hath  immortality," 
purchased  for  them  by  His  own  precious  blood  ?  This 
doctrine  of  Life  and  Immortality  through  Christ,  the 
Life-giver,  which  illuminates  every  page  of  the  Gospel,  is 
indeed  humiliating  to  the  pride  of  man ;  but  it  is  full  of 


Chap.  XI.]  THE   LIFE   GIVEN.  207 

honor  and  glory  to  Christ,  and  full  of  comfort  and  joy  to 
those  who  receive  it,  and  full  of  hope  to  dying  men. 

O,  my  brothers  in  Christ !  why  will  you  agree  with  the 
enemies  of  your  Lord  to  rob  Him  of  His  peculiar  glory 
as  the  Giver  of  Eternal  Life  to  His  people?  You 
indeed  love  and  cherish  Him,  as  you  well  may,  as  your 
Saviour  from  sin  and  misery.  But  He  is  infinitely  more, 
He  saves  you  from  Death — not  a  metaphorical  death — 
but  an  actual  death,  from  which  there  would  be  no  awak- 
ing without  Him.  It  is  because  He  has  risen,  that  you  will 
rise.  It  is  because  He  lives,  that  you  will  live.  And  the 
Life  that  He  gives  you  is  a  Life  of  blessedness  and  joy 
forever  in  His  everlasting  kingdom.  "  Give  unto  the 
Lord,  O  ye  His  people !  give  unto  the  Lord  the  glory 
due  unto  His  name." 

And  you  whom  He  has  sent  to  preach  this  Gospel, 
preach  it  in  no  meager,  stinted  way,  as  though  you  were 
afraid  of  giving  Him  too  large  a  share  of  honor  in  the 
work  of  your  redemption,  but  preach  it  in  all  its  fulness, 
as  the  Gospel  of  Salvation  not  merely  from  sin  and  mis- 
ery, but  from  death  itself.  Why  should  you  not  begin 
even  now  the  song  which  will  be  sung  by  all  who  reach 
their  heavenly  home,  "  Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was 
slain,  to  receive  power  and  riches,  and  wisdom  and 
strength  and  honor  and  glory  and  blessing  forever  and 
ever ! " 

It  was  not  until  after  the  Holy  Spirit  was  poured  out 
with  power  upon  the  Apostles  and  early  disciples  of 
our  Lord,  that  their  minds  were  fully  open  to  receive 
this  truth.  But  when  they  did  receive  it,  and  "  knew 
the  power  of  His  Resurrection,"  they  were  lifted  com- 
pletely out  of  their  former  condition,  and  filled  with  a 
zeal  and  energy  which  nothing  could  withstand.  This 
was  "  the  unspeakable  Gift,"  which  they  burned  to  make 


208  THE   TTNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

known  to  their  fellow-men.  This  is  what  the  angel  told 
Peter  and  the  other  Apostles  to  preach,  when  he  had 
released  them  from  the  prison  at  Jerusalem :  "  Go  stand 
and  speak  in  the  temple  to  the  people  all  the  words  of 
this  (zoe)  Life."  And  they  gladly  obeyed.  This  is  what 
Paul  and  Barnabas  preached  at  Antioch,  first  to  the  Jews, 
and  when  they  refused  to  accept  of  Jesus  as  the  Giver  of 
this  lAfe^  they  turned  to  the  Gentiles,  saying  : 

Acts  13:  46.  "  It  was  necessary  that  the  Word  of  God  should 
first  have  been  spoken  to  you:  but  seeing  ye  put  it  from  you, 
and  judge  yourselves  unworthy  (by  your  unbelief),  of  Everlast- 
ing Life,  lo !  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles.  For  so  hath  the  Son  com- 
manded us,  saying :  I  have  set  thee  to  bo  a  liglit  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, that  thou  shouldest  be  for  salvation  unto  the  ends  of  the 
earth.  And  when  the  Gentiles  heard  this,  they  were  glad,  and 
glorified  the  Word  of  the  Lord,  and  as  many  as  were  ordained  to 
Eternal  Life,  believed." 

Paul  preached  the  same  doctrine  to  the  Athenians ; 
but  with  their  minds  full  of  the  fanciful  notions  of  their 
poets  and  philosophers,  concerning  the  spirit  world  and 
the  immortality  of  all  souls,  they  scouted  the  idea  of 
Eternal  Life  only  by  a  resurrection  from  the  dead  through 
Jesus  Christ.  Had  he  preached  to  them  the  doctrine  of 
.  a  spirit  life,  of  future  rewards  and  penalties,  an  immortal 
life,  either  of  blessedness  or  misery,  for  all  men,  they 
would  not  have  called  him  "a  setter  forth  of  strange 
gods  "  ;  for  this  is  just  what  their  own  religion  taught 
them.  But  the  doctrine  of  "  Jesus  and  the  Resurrection," 
and  of  immortality  through  Him  only,  was  no  more 
agreeable  to  them,  than  it  is  to  the  Platonists  at  the  pres- 
ent day. 

This  is  the  leading  truth  that  runs  through  all  his  Epis- 
tles, and  the  string  upon  which  all  the  other  doctrines  of 
the  Gospel  are  suspended.  To  the  Romans,  he  preached 
that  all,  whether  Jews  or  Gentiles,  were  under  one  com- 


Chap.  XI.]  THE    LIFE    GIVEN.  209 

mon  sentence  pf  death ;  for  all  had  sinned  and  come 
short  of  the  glory  of  God.  Those  who  had  sinned  with- 
out law,  must  perish  without  law,  and  those  who  had 
sinned  under  the  Law,  must  be  judged  by  the  law  ;  that 
death  reigned  over  all  the  children  of  Adam.  But,  by 
the  grace  of  God,  there  was  hope.  The  Gospel,  which  he 
was  sent  to  preach,  was  the  power  of  God  unto  salvation 
unto  every  one  that  believeth  in  Christ.  "  To  those,  who 
by  patient  continuance  in  well  doing,  seek  for  honor  and 
Immortality  (God  would  give)  Eternal  Life."  "That  as 
sin  hath  reigned  unto  death,  even  so  might  grace  reign 
through  righteousness  unto  Eternal  Life,  by  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord."  To  believers,  he  says,  "What  fruit  had  ye 
then,  in  those  things  whereof  ye  are  now  ashamed  ?  for 
the  end  of  those  things  is  death ;  but  now  being  made 
free  from  sin,  and  become  the  servants  of  God,  ye  have 
your  fruit  unto  holiness,  and  the  end.  Everlasting  Life, 
For  the  wages  of  sin  is  deaths  but  the  gift  of  God  is 
Eternal  Life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  God  is  a 
Sovereign  in  the  bestowment  both  of  natural  and  spirit- 
ual gifts.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  spontaneous  genera- 
tion or  regeneration.  The  children  of  God  are  begotten 
by  God  Plimself,  as  truly  as  the  children  of  Adam  are 
begotten  by  their  natural  progenitor.  This  new  life, 
which  they  receive  from  Him,  concerns  itself,  not  with 
carnal  and  perishable  things,  but  with  spiritual  and  eter- 
nal things.  They  who  possess  it  are  "  led  by  the  Spirit 
of  God."  They  will  not  come  into  condemnation  to  the 
second  death.  Nothing  will  be  able  "  to  separate  them 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus,"  by  whom, 
and  to  whom  they  are  henceforth  to  live  as  His  chosen 
ones,  and  heirs  of  Eternal  Life. 

This  same  truth  is  equally  prominent  in  both  of  hig 
Epistles  to  the  Corinthians.     In  the  First  he  shows  how 


210  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

impossible  it  is  for  human  reason  to  attain  to  any  true 
knowledge  of  the  Gospel ;  how  foolish  the  truth  it  re- 
veals— of  Eternal  Life  through  a  crucified  Saviour — 
seems  to  natural  men,  "  For  the  natural  man  receiveth 
not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  for  they  are  foolish- 
ness unto  him,  neither  can  he  know  them,  because  they 
are  spiritually  discerned."  He  was  "  determined  to  know 
nothing  among  them,  but  Christ  and  Him  crucified." 
"  Eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  nor  have  entered  into 
the  heart  of  man  the  things  that  God  hath  prepared  for 
them  that  love  Him."  "  The  fashion  of  this  world  pass- 
eth  away  " ;  the  prizes  that  natural  men  seek  are  corrupt- 
ible, but  theirs  is  incorruptible.  And  finally,  coming  to 
the  great  and  glorious  doctrine  of  the  Kesurrection,  he 
dwells  on  it  more  at  length,  and  shows  how  it  is  assured 
to  us  by  the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ.  If  this 
assurance  were  taken  away,  we  would  be  the  most  miser- 
able of  all  men,  for  we  would  have  no  hope  of  any  life 
beyond  the  grave ;  all  who  had  fallen  asleep  in  Him  had 
perished — not  gone  to  a  state  of  endless  sin  and  misery — 
hvX  perished^  become  extinct.  He  attempts  to  illustrate 
the  nature  of  the  spiritual  bodies  we  shall  take  on  at  the 
resurrection,  and  show  how  glorious,  and  how  incorrupti- 
ble they  will  be ;  how  entirely  different  from  our  gross 
fleshly  bodies,  which  are  fitted  only  for  psuchical  natures, 
and  could  not  possibly  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God,  and 
how,  simultaneously  with  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
the  bodies  of  those  who  are  alive  at  Christ's  coming,  will 
be  changed ;  "  In  a  moment,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye, 
for  the  trumpet  shall  sound,  and  the  dead  shall  be  raised 
incorruptible,  and  we  shall  be  changed.  For  this  cor- 
ruptible must  put  on  incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must 
put  on  immortality^  and  death  be  swallowed  up  in  vic- 
tory.     O   Death,   where   is    thy   sting?    O    Hades   (or 


Chap.  XI.]  THE    LIFE    GIVEN.  211 

thanate  O  Death),  where  is  thy  victory?"  Mark  the 
strength  of  the  expression  this  corruptible  must  put  on 
incorruption,  and  this  mortal  must  put  on  im>m.ortality — 
surely  if  incorrupt  ion — if  immortality  is  then  put  on,  it 
could  not  have  been  possessed  before. 

The  Second  Epistle  is  equally  full  of  Christ  and  Him 
crucified,  as  the  Source  of  Eternal  Life  to  all  His  people. 
The  apostle  is  determined  to  know  nothing  else  among 
them,  waiting  anxiously  for  the  time  when  his  mortality 
*'  shall  be  swallowed  up  of  life." 

So  is  it  with  all  his  other  Epistles — our  quotations  from 
which  must  be  cut  short.  This  is  their  central  theme : 
«  Christ  our  Lifer  "  In  hope  of  Eternal  Life:'  "  Your 
Life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God."  "  When  Christ  who  is 
our  Life  shall  appear,  then  shall  ye  also  appear  with 
Him  in  glory." 

Peter,  James  and  Jude  follow  in  the  same  track. 
"Holding  forth  the  word  of  Life.'''' — Exhorting  all  to 
"  Fight  the  good  fight  of  faith,  and  to  lay  hold  of  Eter- 
nal Life:'*  To  look  for  "  the  Crown  of  Life  which  the 
Lord  hath  promised  to  all  that  love  Him." 

The  Epistles  of  John,  like  his  gospel,  are  full  of  the 
same  theme.  He  begins  and  closes  his  first  epistle  with 
this  central  thou£cht  of  Eternal  Life  in  Christ. 

1.  John  1:  1.  "  That  which  was  from  the  beginning,  which 
we  have  heard  and  which  we  have  seen  with  our  eyes,  and 
which  we  have  looked  upon,  and  our  hands  have  handled,  of 
the  Word  of  Life.  For  the  Life,  was  manifested,  and  we  have 
seen  it,  and  bear  witness,  and  show  unto  you  that  Eternal  Life 
which  was  with  the  Father  and  was  manifested  unto  us." — 2: 
25.  "  This  is  the  promise  that  He  hath  promised  us,  even  Eter- 
nal Life.^^  3:14.  "  We  know  that  we  have  passed  from  death 
unto  Life,  because  we  love  the  brethren.  He  that  loveth  not 
his  brother  abideth  in  death.  Whosoever  hateth  his  brother  is 
a  murderer;  and  ye  know  that  no  murderer  hath  Eternal  Life 
abiding  in  him."    6:  9-12.    "If  we  receive  the  witness  of  men, 


212  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

the  witness  of  God  is  greater:  for  this  is  the  witness  of  God 
which  He  hath  testified  of  His  Son.  He  that  belie veth  on  the 
Son  hath  the  witness  in  himself.  lie  that  believeth  not  God  hath 
made  Him  a  liar,  because  he  believeth  not  the  record  that  God 
gave  of  His  Son,  and  this  is  the  record — That  God  hath  fjiven  to 
us  Eternal  Life  ;  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the 
Son  hath  the  Life  and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  the  The 
Life." 

How  is  it  possible  for  any  stronger,  or  more  explicit  af- 
firmation of  the  doctrine  for  which  we  are  contending,  to 
be  framed,  than  this  ?  How  is  it  possible  to  bring  any 
better  testimony  or  record  or  authority  than  is  here  given  ? 
The  only  way  in  which  its  force  can  be  turned  is  to  deny 
that  (zoe).  Life  here  means  life.  And  this  is  just  what 
our  opponents  are  bold  enough  to  do.  They  say  it  has 
an  ethical,  spiritualistic,  metaphorical  meaning.  It  means 
"  purity,"  "  happiness,"  "  well-being,"  "  true  functional 
action,"  etc. — anything  but  just  what  it  ^^^^^  Eternal  Life, 
If  they  shall  be  permitted  to  change  the  meaning  of  such 
positive  testimony  as  this,  to  suit  their  own  convenience — 
then  their  controversy  is  with  God  and  not  with  us.  But 
in  taking  leave  of  them,  we  must  remind  them  of  the  re- 
markable words  with  which  this  testimony  is  introduced 
"  He  that  believeth  not  God  hath  made  Him  a  Liar.,  be- 
cause he  believeth  not  tJie  record  that  God  gave  of  His 
Son.-" 

Finally,  in  the  Apocalypse  the  revelator  gives  us  a 
panoramic  view  of  the  struggle  between  the  Life-giver 
and  him  that  "  hath  the  power  of  death  "  on  this  earth, 
to  the  end  of  the  age.  We  are  permitted  to  see  Christ 
as  "  the  Lamb  of  God  that  was  slain  "  victorious  over  all. 
His  foes  and  Satan  the  murderer  (the  man-killer  a^xthro- 
poktonos)  from  the  beginning,  and  all  his  hosts,  bound, 
judged  and  "punished  with  everlasting  destruction." 
And  the  redeemed  from  among  the  children  of  Adam,  a 


Chap.  XI.]  THE    LIFE    GIVEN-.  213 

mighty  company  whom  no  man  can  number,  "whose 
names  were  written  in  the  Lamly's  Booh  of  Life  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world,"  clothed  in  white  robes,  are 
seen  walking  the  golden  streets  of  the  Celestial  Paradise, 
with  crowns  on  their  heads,  and  harps  in  their  hands, 
singing  praises  to  Him  who  bought  them  with  His  own 
precious  blood.  And  they  shall  again  "  have  a  right  to 
the  Tree  of  Life^''  and  "  the  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst 
of  the  throne  shall  feed  them,  and  lead  them  unto  living 
fountains  of  water,  and  God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears 
from  their  eyes." 


Note. — Prof.  Druramond  in  his  recent  able  work  entitled 
Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World  teacbes  the  same  truth  for 
which  we  are  contending.  Though  he  does  not  formally  deny 
natural  immortality  nor  teach  in  so  many  words  the  necessity 
of  union  with  Christ  in  order  to  Eternal  Life,  yet  if  science 
be  worth  anything  on  this  point,  his  book  is  a  scientific  demon- 
stration of  the  truth  that  life  only  in  Christ  is  God's  great  law 
for  the  future  of  men.     We  quote  the  following  passage : 

"  What  now,  let  us  ask,  specifically  distinguishes  a  Christian 
man  from  a  non-Christian  man  ?  Is  it  that  he  has  certain 
mental  characteristics  not  possessed  by  the  other  ?  Is  it  that 
certain  faculties  have  been  trained  in  him.  that  morality  as- 
sumes special  and  higher  manifestations,  and  character  a  nobler 
form  ?  Is  the  Christian  merely  an  ordinary  man,  who  happens 
from  birth  to  have  been  surrounded  with  a  peculiar  set  of  ideas? 
Is  his  religion  of  that  peculiar  quality  of  the  moral  life,  defined 
by  Mr.  Arnold  as  "morality  touched  by  condition"?  And 
does  the  possession  of  a  high  ideal,  benevolent  sympathies,  a 
reverent  spirit,  and  a  favorable  environment  account  for  what 
men  call  his  spiritual  life  ? 

"  The  distinction  between  them  is  the  same  as  that  between 
the  organic  and  the  inorganic,  the  living  and  the  dead.  What  is 
the  diS'erence  between  a  crystal  and  an  organism,  a  stone  and  a 
plant  ?  They  have  much  in  common.  Both  are  made  of  the 
same  atoms.  Both  display  the  same  properties  of  matter.  Both 
are  subject  to  the  physical  laws.  Both  may  be  very  beautiful. 
But  beside  possessing  all  the  crystal  has,  the  plant  possesses 
something  more — a  mysterious  something  called  Life,     This 


214  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

Life  is  not  something  whicli  existed  in  the  crystal  in  a  less  de- 
veloped form.  There  is  nothing  at  all  like  it  in  the  crystal. 
There  is  nothing  like  the  fu  st  beginning  of  it  in  the  crystal,  not 
a  trace  or  a  symptom  of  it.  This  jjlant  is  tenanted  by  some- 
thing new,  an  original  and  uuique  possession,  added  over 
and  above  all  the  properties  common  to  both.  When  from  veg- 
etable life  we  rise  to  animal  life,  here  again  we  find  something 
original  and  unique — unique  at  least  as  compared  with  the  min- 
eral. From  animal  life  we  ascend  again  to  Spiritual  life.  And 
here  also  is  something  new,  something  still  more  unique.  He 
who  lives  the  spiritual  life,  has  a  distinct  kind  of  life  added  to 
all  the  other  phases  of  life  which  he  manifests — a  kind  of  life 
infinitely  more  distinct  than  is  the  active  life  of  a  plant  from 
the  inertia  of  a  stone.  Tlie  spiritual  man  is  more  distinct  in 
point  of  fact,  than  is  the  plant  from  the  stone.  This  is  the  one 
possible  comparison  in  Nature  for  the  widest  distinction  in  Na- 
ture; but  compared  with  the  difference  between  the  natural  and 
the  spiritual,  the  gulf  which  divides  the  organic  from  the  inor- 
ganic is  a  hair's  breadth.  The  natural  man  belongs  essentially 
to  this  present  order  of  things.  He  is  endowed  simply  with  a 
high  quality  of  the  natural  animal  Life.  But  it  is  life  of  so 
poor  a  quality  that  it  is  not  Life  at  all.  He  that  hath  not  the 
Son  liath  not  Life;  but  he  that  hath  the  Son  hath  Life— a  new, 
distinct  and  supernatural  endowment.  He  is  not  of  this  world. 
He  is  of  the  timeless  state  of  eternity.  It  doth  not  yet  appear 
what  he  shall  6e." 


CHAPTER  XIL 
Life  versus  Death. 

In  the  two  foregoing  chapters,  the  reader's  attention 
has  been  directed  to  two  classes  of  texts  :  Firsts  those 
that  teach  that  the  portion  of  the  sinner  or  ^natural  man 
is  death  and  destruction.  Second,  those  that  teach  that 
the  portion  of  the  renewed  or  spiritual  man  is  Life  Ever- 
lasting. Under  the  designation  of  sinners  is  included  the 
whole  human  race.  As  children  of  Adam  we  are  all 
mortal, — not  mortal  in  any  partial  sense  as  to  our  bodies 
merely,  but  mortal  in  every  sense  of  the  word— having 
no  eternal  life  of  any  sort  abiding  in  us  by  nature.  Im- 
mortality is  declared  to  be  the  special  and  peculiar  gift  of 
God  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  only  received  in  a  new 
spiritual  birth. 

The  two  opposite  doctrines  of  these  two  classes  of 
men — and  there  are  only  two  classes  recognized  in  the 
Scriptures — are  set  forth  both  positively  and  negatively, 
categorically  and  figuratively,  with  such  reiteration,  and 
in  such  variety  of  language  in  every  part  of  God's  Word, 
that  these  two  prime  truths  might  well  be  considered  as 
established — if  anything  can  be  established  by  texts  of 
Scripture — beyond  all  question,  viz. : 

1.  That  ajjart  from  Christ,  the  natural  man  has  no 
possible  ground  of  hope  for  immortality  or  eternal  life. 

2.  That  this  immortality  is  just  what  every  regener- 
ated  soul  has  assured  to  him  through  the  death  and  res- 
urrection of  Christ, 

215 


216  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

But,  as  if  to  put  these  truths  beyond  all  controversy 
and  to  make  them  stand  out  as  clearly  as  possible,  there 
is  a  large  number  of  other  passages  which  we  have  not 
yet  cited,  in  which  these  two  classes  are  brought  into  jux- 
taposition ;  and  a  comparison  by  contrast  is  instituted  be- 
tween them  under  a  great  variety  of  titles ;  such  as  "  sin- 
ners and  saints  " ;  "  the  wicked  and  the  righteous ;  "  ''  un- 
believers and  believers ; "  "  reprabates  and  heirs ;  "  "  ene- 
mies of  God  and  friends  of  God ; "  "'  the  foolish  and  the 
wise;"  "the  tares  and  the  wheat;"  "the  dross  and  the 
gold ; "  "  the  children  of  the  world  and  the  children  of  the 
kingdom ; "  "  the  children  of  God  and  the  children  of  the 
wicked  one  ;  "  "  those  who  live  after  the  flesh  and  those 
who  are  led  by  the  Spirit ; "  and  by  a  great  variety  of 
other  titles,  under  which  their  opposite  characters  and 
destinies  are  set,  the  one  over  against  the  other. 

The  children  of  Adam  by  natural  birth  are  shown  to 
be  like  their  progenitor,  sinful,  selfish,  carnal,  earthly, 
mortal,  finite  in  their  aims,  and  beset  by  a  thousand  ills 
as  they  run  their  transitory  career,  until  they  go  down  to 
sheol  (or  hades)  and  return  to  the  dust  from  which  they 
were  taken. — While  on  the  other  hand,  the  children  of 
God,  by  a  new  birth,  are,  like  their  Spiritual  Progenitor, 
pure  in  heart,  heavenly  minded,  seeking  those  things  that 
are  spiritual  and  eternal ;  and  though,  while  yet  imperfect 
these  two  natures,  the  old  and  the  new,  mingle  for  a  time, 
and  struggle  for  the  mastery  in  the  same  body,  like  the 
infants  Esau  and  Jacob,  the  last  born  shall  finally  sup- 
plant the  first,  and  come  off  completely  victorious.  And 
though  the  old  nature  shall  go  dowTi  to  death  and  decay, 
the  new  man,  created  after  the  image  of  God  in  true  ho- 
liness, shall  take  to  himself  a  spiritual  body,  adapted  to 
his  sj^iritual  nature,  like  to  that  of  his  risen  Lord,  and 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VEESUS    DEATH.  217 

rise,  like  Him,  immortal,  both  in  body  and  in  spirit,  to  ita 
inheritance,  incorruptible,  undefiled,  and  that  fadeth  not 
away,  reserved  for  him  in  heaven. 

It  remains  for  us  now  to  give  attention  to  some  of 
these  antithetical  passages. 

It  is  not  in  the  Gospel  that  this  contrast  is  first  insti 
tuted.  From  the  time  when  God  first  began  to  choose 
to  Himself  a  peculiar  people,  and  the  line  began  to  be 
drawn  between  the  sons  of  God  and  the  children  of 
men,  a  separate  destiny  was  suggested  to  their  hopes, 
and  their  faith  laid  hold  of  it,  though  it  was  but  dimly 
apprehended — for  it  was  not  until  the  coming  of  Clirist 
that  Life  and  Immortality  were  fully  brought  to  light, 
as  the  peculiar  portion  of  believers.  Though  a  very 
prominent  place  is  given  to  earthly  blessings,  in  the 
good  that  is  promised  to  the  faithful,  yet  they  finished 
their  earthly  course,  and  slept  with  their  fathers,  under 
a  conviction,  more  or  less  distinct,  that  they  had  not  ex- 
hausted the  promises.  They  felt  that  something  more 
was  meant  by  the  oft-repeated  assurance  that  they  should 
"  inherit  the  earth  "  and  "  prolong  their  days."  Their 
faith  lighted  up  the  dark  valley,  and  dissipated  its  chief 
terrors.  The  way  to  the  grave  became  brighter  and 
brighter,  as  the  Gospel  day  began  to  dawn.  While  to 
the  wicked,  the  shadowy  terrors  that  came  up  from  sheol 
to  meet  them,  as  they  went  down  into  its  dark  chambers, 
became  more  and  more  fearful. 

There  is  much  that  is  mysterious  to  us  now  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Christ  Himself  with  respect  to  the  future  ;  and 
much  more  in  that  of  the  prophets ;  nor  can  we  suppose 
that  those  to  whom  they  were  spoken  fully  comprehended 
them  ;  and  yet  they  felt  them  to  be  pregnant  with  mean- 
ing. In  the  giving  of  the  Law  from  Sinai,  when  God 
proclaimed  Himself  as  visiting  the  iniquity  of  the  fathers 
10 


218  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

upon  the  children,  to  the  third  and  fourth  geiieration — 
and  showing  mercy  unto  thousands  of  them  that  love 
Him  and  keep  His  commandments ;  in  the  responsive 
utterances  of  blessinoj  and  cursinsj  from  Ebal  and  Geri- 
zim  ;  in  the  farewell  words  of  Moses,  "  I  call  heaven  and 
earth  to  record  this  day  against  you,  that  I  have  set 
before  you  Life  and  Deaths  blessing  and  cursing ;  there- 
fore choose  Life,  that  both  thou  and  thy  seed  may  live"; 
there  is,  to  us  who  read  these  solemn  words  under  the 
light  of  the  Gospel,  a  significance  that  is  not  exhausted  this 
side  of  the  grave,  and  even  those  who  heard  them  must 
have  felt  that  they  were  fraught  with  a  deeper  meaning. 

The  inspired  prophetess  sings 

"  He  will  keep  the  feet  of  His  saints,  and  the  wicked  shall  be 
silent  in  darkness.^*     (1  Sara.  2:  9.) 

In  many  of  the  Psalms  this  contrast  between  the  two 
classes  is  emphatically  made.  In  the  First  Psalm  it  is 
said :  "  The  (/odly  man  is  like  a  tree  planted  by  the  rivers 
of  waters,  his  leaf  shall  not  wither. — But  the  ungodly  are 
not  so,  but  are  as  the  cAo^  which  the  wind  drive th  away." 
In  the  Second,  we  have  a  vivid  picture  of  the  King  in  Zion 
l^ossessing  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth  w^ith  his  loyal 
people — while  His  enemies  "are  dashed  in  pieces  like  a 
potter's  vessel."*     So  is  it  with  very  many  of  the  Psalms. 

But  it  must  suffice  to  quote  more  at  length  from  the 
Forty-ninth,  in  which  the  two  classes  are  distinctly  con- 
trasted, and  the  issue  of  their  lives  too  plainly  set  forth 
to  be  misunderstood. 

**  They  that  trust  in  their  wealth  and  boast  tliemselves  of  the 
multitude  of  their  riches — none  of  them  can  by  any  means  re- 
deem his  brother,  nor  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  him  (for  the  re- 

*We  may  ask,  how  the  way  of  holiness  could  be  called  the 
way  everlasting,  in  contrast  to  every  wicked  way  (Ps.  139:  24.) 
If  the  two  ways  were  both  everlasting;  the  one  being  the  way  of 
everlasting  holiness  and  happiness;  the  other  the  way  of  ever- 
lasting sin  and  misery  ?    S.  Minton. 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VERSUS    DEATH.  219 

demption  of  the  soul  is  precious  and  it  ceaseth  for  ever)  that  he 
would  still  live,  and  not  see  corruption.  For  he  seeth  that  wise 
men  die ;  likewise  the  fool  and  the  brutish  person,  and  leave 
their  wealth  to  others.  Like  sheep  they  are  laid  in  the  grave: 
death  shall  feed  on  them^smd  the  upright  shall  have  dominion 
over  them  in  the  morning,  and  their  beauty  shall  consume  in 
the  grave— i/ieir  dioellmy  (final  home).  But  God  will  redeem  my 
soul  from  the  power  of  the  grave;  for  He  shall  receive  me.  He 
shall  go  to  the  generation  of  his  fathers;  they  shall  never  see 
light  Man  that  is  in  honor  and  understandeth  not  is  like  the 
beasts  that  perish." 

However  vague  some  of  these  expressions  may  be — 
and  their  imperfect  translation  makes  them  still  more  ob- 
scure— the  general  idea,  and  the  contrast  are  sufficiently 
plain.  Nothing  else  can  be  meant  than  what  is  more 
fully  set  forth  in  the  Gospel — the  resurrection  of  the 
righteous  to  a  Life  that  shall  never  end,  and  the  death 
and  final  extinction  of  the  wicked. 

These  contrasts  abound  in  the  writings  of  Solomon. 
The  book  of  Proverbs  opens  with  an  impressive  picture 
of  this  sort ;  and  such  antithetical  passages  as  the  follow- 
ing are  scattered  here  and  there  from  beginning  to  end  : 

*'  The  light  of  the  righteous  rejoiceth — but  the  lamp  of  the 
wicked  shall  be  put  out.  Though  a  sinner  do  evil  a  hundred 
times,  and  his  days  be  prolonged,  yet  surely  I  know  it  shall  be 
well  with  them  that  fear  God,  which  fear  before  Him. — But  it 
shall  not  be  well  with  the  wicked,  neither  shall  he  prolong  his 
days,  which  are  as  a  shadow,  because  he  feareth  not  before 
God."  "The  fear  of  the  Lord  prolongeth  days, — but  the  years 
of  the  wicked  shall  be  shortened.  The  fear  of  the  Lord  pro- 
longeth days. — [This  expression  *  prolongeth  days'  means  more 
than  simply  living  to  be  old.  It  is  of  frequent  occurrence — 
and  evidently  carries  the  idea  of  '  length  of  days  forever  and 
ever,'  which  is  elsewhere  used] — but  destruction  shall  be  to 
the  workers  of  iniquity.  The  hope  of  the  righteous  shall  be 
gladness — but  the  expectation  of  the  wicked  shall  perish.  The 
righteous  shall  never  be  removed — but  the  wicked  shall  not 
inhabit  the  earth.    As  righteousness  tendeth  to  Life,   so  ha 


220  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

that  pursueth  evil,  pursueth  it  to  his  own  Death.  "Whoso 
findeth  Me,  findeth  Life,  and  shall  obtain  favor  of  the  Lord- 
but  he  that  sinneth  against  Me  wrongeth  his  own  soul;  all  they 
that  hate  Me  love  death.'* 

In  the  prophetical  books  this  contrast  is  often  set  forth 
in  beautiful  and  glowing  language.  In  Isaiah  the  anxious 
inquirer  is  represented  while  in  a  scene  of  conflict,  and  of 
mingled  light  and  darkness,  as  crying  out  from  Seir, 
"  Watchman  what  of  the  night  ?  "  and  the  cheering  re- 
sponse comes  from  him  who  stands  on  the  watch  tower : 
"  The  morning  cometh — and  also  the  night ;  the  morning 
of  victory  and  joy  to  the  people  of  God,  and  the  night  of 
deeper  darkness  and  death  to  His  enemies.  "  Say  ye  to 
the  righteous  that  it  shall  be  well  with  him ;  for  they 
shall  eat  the  fruit  of  their  doings.  Woe  unto  the  wicked  ; 
it  shall  be  ill  with  him ;  for  the  reward  of  his  hands  shall 
be  given  him."  In  the  closing  verses  of  this  prophecy 
upon  which  we  will  remark  in  another  place — this  con- 
trast is  sharply  drawn.  So  also  in  Daniel  we  are  told 
that  the  righteous  "  shall  shine  as  the  stars  forever  and 
ever" — but  the  wicked  " shall  be  unto  shame  and  ever- 
lasting contempt."  * 

In  reply  to  the  querulous  complaints  of  the  Israelites, 
that  the  ways  of  God  were  unjust  and  unequal,  and  that 
He  showed  no  more  favor  to  the  righteous  than  to  the 
wicked,  the  prophet  Ezekiel  was  directed  to  say,  that  it 
is  not  so.  God  has  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of  any  one. 
It  is  His  will  that  the  wicked  should  turn  from  his  evil 
way  and  Live.  *'  Turn  ye,  turn  ye,  for  why  will  ye  dieF  " 
They  could  not  have  understood  him  as  using  these  words 
in  a  mere  earthly  and  temporal  sense ;  for  it  would  have 
been  nothing  but  mockery  had  he  meant  nothing  more 

*For  a  more  particular  notice  of  this  passage  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  next  chapter. 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VERSUS   DEATH.  221 

than  the  first  death,  and  the  life  that  now  is.  The  second 
death  which  is  more  distinctly  revealed,  after  the  corning 
of  Christ  through  whom  Life  and  immortality  are  brought 
to  light  was  evidently  here  implied.  The  full  significance 
of  these  terms  may  not  have  been  as  obvious  to  them, 
nor  even  to  the  inspired  prophet,  as  they  are  to  us ;  yet 
there  is  an  implication  of  a  life  and  death  to  come,  of 
which  they  could  not  have  been  wholly  ignorant.  Mal- 
achi  closes  the  Old  Testament  canon  with  a  vivid  pict- 
ure of  the  preservation  of  the  righteous,  as  the  jewels 
of  God ;  and  the  destruction  of  the  wicked,  whom  the 
Lord  shall  burn  up  as  stubble^  leaving  neither  root  nor 
branchy  in  the  dreadful  day  of  His  coming. 

The  Neio  Testament. 

Now  comes  John  the  Baptist,  like  the  day  star  before 
the  rising  sun,  or  a  herald  in  advance  of  the  King  to  pre- 
pare the  way  of  the  Lord,  saying :  "  Repent  ye,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  A  new  spiritual  kingdom 
is  to  be  erected  on  the  earth.  "  The  axe  is  laid  unto  (at) 
the  root  of  the  trees ;  every  tree  that  bringeth  not  forth 
good  fruit  is  hewn  down  and  cast  into  the  fire  " — for 
what  purpose  ? — to  be  burned  up  of  course — "  His  fan  is 
in  His  hand  and  He  will  thoroughly  purge  His  floor, 
and  gather  His  wheat  into  the  garner  " — and  what  will 
He  do  with  the  chaff  ?  Will  He  heap  it  up  in  another 
place  and  keep  it  also  ?  No — "  But  He  will  burn  up  the 
chaff  with  unquenchable  fire."  Strange  indeed  it  is,  that 
this  expressive  phrase  which  emphasizes  the  sure  and 
certain  consumption  of  the  chaff  that  is  thrown  into  it, 
should  be  so  perverted  and  reversed  as  to  be  made  to 
promise  the  eternal  preservation  in  torment  of  the  hu- 
man chaff  that  is  in  like  manner  cast  into  it ! ! 

At  last  in  the  fulness  of  time  the  King  Himself  comes 
down,  bringing  with  Him  to  earth,  the  Kingdom  of 


222  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II, 

Heaven.  He  comes  to  make  a  beginning  of  setting  it 
up  in  this  lower  world,  and  to  call  men  into  it.  But  all 
men  are  by  nature  earthly,  carnal,  and  under  the  domin- 
ion  of  temporal  things.  This  is  purely  spiritual.  Such 
as  men  are  they  have  no  fitness  for  it.  They  must  be 
born  again.  They  must  become  new  creatures.  Their 
natural  birth  gives  them  only  a  low  and  transitory  life. — 
a  soulical  (psuche)  or  natural  life.  They  must  have  a 
new  spiritual  life  { pneumatikos  life)  in  order  that  they 
may  be  fitted  for  His  kingdom  and  for  the  Life  Everlast- 
ing {zoe  aidnios).  This  is  the  life  He  will  give  to  His 
people.  His  own  peculiar  life  that  shall  never  pass  away. 
Because  He  lives  they  shall  live  also.  The  gate  that 
leads  to  destruction  {apoleian) — not  simply  to  misery, 
but  to  utter  ruin — is  broad,  and  therefore  many  go  in 
thereat.  And  because  the  gate  that  leads  to  life — ^not 
simply  happiness,  but  to  (zoe  aionios)  life  everlasting,  ia 
strait  and  narrow,  few  there  be  that  find  it. 

"  God  so  loved  the  world  that  He  gave  II is  only  begot- 
ten Son  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not 
perish  " — this  means  vastly  more  than  being  miserable — 
"  but  have  Everlasting  Life."  They  who  build  on  any 
other  foundation  will  be  completely  overwhelmed,  when 
the  final  test  shall  come ; — but  they  who  build  on  Him, 
like  the  man  who  built  on  a  rock,  will  never  fall. 

Treasures  laid  up  on  earth  will  be  lost — those  that  are 
laid  up  in  heaven  will  be  secure  forever.  He  is  the 
Bread  that  came  down  from  heaven ;  all  who  feed  on  this 
bread  shall  live  forever. — But  material  bread,  even  the 
manna  that  was  miraculously  given,  can  nourish  only  for 
a  limited  time.  Their  fathers  who  ate  of  it  in  the  wil- 
derness are  dead, — ^but  those  who  eat  of  the  bread  that 
He  shall  give  them  will  never  die. 

He  gives  the  water  of  Life.     Natural  water  is  tran- 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VERSUS   DEATH,  223 

sient  in  its  effects, — ^but  the  water  that  He  gives  will  be, 
in  those  who  drink  it,  a  well  of  water  springing  up  unto 
Everlasting  Life. 

He  is  the  true  Vine.  His  people  are  the  branches,  and 
live  by  their  union  to  Him  as  long  as  He  lives, — but  the 
branches  that  are  severed  from  Him  must  wither  and 
die,  and  are  fit  only  to  be  burned. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  a  net  that  was  cast  into 
the  sea,  and  gathered  of  every  kind,  which  when  it  was 
full,  they  drew  to  shore  and  set  down  and  "  gathered  the 
good  into  vessels  " — "-but  cast  the  had  away.''''  It  is 
like  a  field  of  grain.  The  good  wheat  is  gathered  into 
bundles  and  laid  up  in  the  garner; — '-'•hut  the  tares ^'' — 
are  not  gathered  into  another  garner  to  be  kept — but  are 
gathered  and  burned  in  the  fir eP  Again,  it  is  like  a  mar- 
riage supper  of  which  none  are  entitled  to  partake  but 
such  as  have  on  the  wedding  garment. 

The  wise  virgins,  whose  lamps  being  filled  with  oil,  are 
bright  and  burning,  go  in  with  the  Bridegroom  to  the 
marriage, — but  the  foolish  virgins,  having  no  oil  in  their 
lamps  are  excluded  and  their  lamps  go  out.  .  Expositors 
who  teach  that  the  lamp  of  life  when  once  lighted  up, 
can  never  be  extinguished,  have  been  greatly  puzzled  by 
this  parable,  and  have  been  quite  unable  to  agree  upon 
what  is  meant  by  these  lamps  and  the  oil  by  which  they 
burn ;  but  when  it  is  once  admitted  that  human  life  is 
evanescent  and  must  eventually  go  out,  and  that  it  is 
only  the  Divine  Life  in  man,  which  the  Lord  Himself 
sustains,  that  endures  forever,  this  parable  is  luminous 
and  self-explanitory. 

By  these  and  by  numerous  other  figures  and  illustra- 
tions our  Lord  sets  forth  in  contrast  the  perishable  na- 
ture of  earthly  things,  and  the  certain  destruction  of 
those  who  choose  them  as  their  chief  good, — and  the  en- 


224  THE    TIN-SPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

during  nature  of  heavenly  things  and  the  Eternal  Life  of 
those  who  seek  them.  This  is  the  primary,  fundamental 
idea  that  runs  through  all  His  teachings :  Carnality,  sin, 
and  death, — Spirituality  of  mind,  holiness  and  Life  Ever- 
lasting. This  is  the  contrast  He  is  continually  holding 
up  before  the  minds  of  all  men.  This  was,  indeed,  the 
grand  object  of  flis  mission,  to  lift  man  up  from  his  an- 
imalism, from  sin  and  consequent  death,  into  that  higher, 
heavenly  plane,  in  which  only  he  could  hope  to  live  for- 
ever ;  to  give  him,  in  the  place  of  his  old  Adamic,  nat- 
ural, carnal  life,  which  cannot  be  perpetuated  forever,  a 
new  spiritual  life, — His  own  peculiar  life,  which  is  a  life 
of  immortal  blessedness.  This  is  the  great  salvation  He 
offers  in  the  Gospel :  Not  merely  a  rescue  from  sin  and 
misery — but  from  Death  itself,  to  which  sin  inevitably 
leads,  when  it  is  finished. 

The  moral  law  which  had  been  given  by  Moses  to  the 
Israelites  was  holy,  and  perfect  in  its  adaptation  to  their 
earthly  life,  though  none  of  them  were  able  perfectly  to 
keep  it.  Its  penalty  of  death  was  a  righteous  penalty. 
But  now  He  uncovers  a  higher,  a  spiritual  sense  of  which 
they  had  hitherto  had  no  conception.  He  shows  it  to  be 
equally  adapted  to  His  spiritual  kingdom.  It  needs  no 
change.  Its  sanctions.  Life  and  Death,  are  still  the  same, 
though  now  to  be  understood  in  a  sense  infinitely  higher 
than  that  which  pertains  to  this  world.  Everything  be- 
longing to  this  world  is  material,  sensual,  perishable  and 
evanescent.  They  who  set  their  affections  on  it,  and 
pursue  its  trifles  must  pass  away  with  it.  Everything 
pertaining  to  His  spiritual  kingdom  is  pure,  incorruptible 
and  eternal.  The  new  life  which  He  gives  to  His  people 
is  not  their  old  life  improved,  rectified,  and  spiritualized, 
but  it  is  a  veritable,  new  life.  They  must  be  begotten 
again,  from  above,  born  again,  and  become  new  creatures. 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE   VEESUS   DEATH.  225 

Their  desires,  their  affections,  their  aims,  their  motives 
of  action,  the  hopes  that  inspire  them,  tlie  means  they 
employ,  their  weapons  of  offence  and  of  defence  are  all 
spiritual.  They  still  remain  for  a  while  longer  in  their 
mortal  bodies,  and  their  old  psuchical  life  still  lingers, 
like  the  flame  of  an  expiring  candle  ;  but  all  this  is  soon 
to  be  changed.  Their  bodies  with  all  their  lusts  are  to  be 
cast  off,  and  they  are  to  be  clothed  with  bodies  that  are 
pure  and  spiritual  like  unto  His  own  glorious  body. 
"For  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom  of 
God."  In  that  world  to  which  He  will  bring  them  "  they 
neither  marry  nor  are  given  in  marriage — neither  can  they 
die  any  moreP 

At  the  final  judgment  of  the  nations  at  His  Second 
Coming,  He  will  gather  them  all  into  two  classes  and 
only  two,  "And  He  shall  separate  them  as  a  shepherd 
divideth  his  sheep  from  the  goats.  And  He  shall  set  the 
sheep  on  His  right  hand ;  but  the  goats,  on  His  left." 
"  And  these  shall  go  away  into  everlasting  punishment " — 
the  punishment  of  "  everlasting  destruction," — "  but  the 
righteous  into  life  eternal."  It  will  be  seen  that  the  con- 
trast here  is  not  between  the  everlasting  happiness  of  the 
one  class,  and  the  everlasting  misery  of  the  other — as  tra- 
ditionalists would  have  it,  but  between  the  Everlasting 
Life  of  the  one,  and  the  everlasting — punishment  of  the 
other — which,  that  the  antithesis  or  contrast  may  be  car- 
ried out,  must  be  the  punishment  of  Death,  from  which 
there  is  no  resurrection — that  is  the  Second  Death. 

The  Apostles  take  up  the  same  contrast  that  the  Mas- 
ter had  taught  them,  and  carry  it  out  in  all  their  Epistles. 

ith  them  also  there  are  but  two  classes ;  those  who 

alk  aftter  the  flesh,  and  those  who  walk  after  the  Spirit. 
They  are  contrasted  in  their  characters  and  in  their  des- 
tinies. Whatever  of  joy  and  peace  they  may  have  on 
10* 


226  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  11. 

the  one  hand,  in  this  life,  from  a  sense  of  Divine  favor, 
or  whatever  of  sorrow  and  misery  they  may  have,  as  the 
fruit  of  sin;  this  is  not  the  contrast  to  which  we  are 
pointed.  It  is  the  result  or  end  of  their  opposite  courses. 
— To  the  one,  it  is  Life  Everlasting ;  to  the  other.  Death 
and  destruction.  Nowhere  in  all  the  Epistles  can  any 
such  contrast  be  found  as  is  drawn  by  modern  theology — 
Eternal  Happiness  and  Eternal  Misery.  No  careful 
reader  of  the  writings  of  Paul  can  fail  to  have  noticed 
how  continually  he  brings  these  two  words  zoe  and  tha?i- 
atos,  Life  and  Death  into  juxtaposition  and  contrast. 
He  scarcely  ever  mentions  the  one  alternative  without 
bringing  the  other  into  notice  in  the  same  connection. 
''  To  be  carnally  minded  is  Death  ;  but  to  be  spiritually 
minded  is  Life  and  peace."  "For  if  ye  live  after  the 
flesh,  ye  shall  die ;  but  if  ye  through  the  Spirit  do  mor- 
tify the  deeds  of  the  body  ye  shall  IweP  Mark  the  an- 
tithesis. It  is  not  ye  are  now  dead,  morally  dead,  neither 
is  it,  ye  shall  die  the  natural  death  to  which  all  are  sub- 
ject— but  ye  shall  die: — The  Second  Death  is  here 
evidently  meant — so  also,  the  words  shall  live  point  to 
the  life — the  Eternal  Life  beyond. 

"  He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap 
corruption'*'^  {phthora)^  dissolution,  decay,  death, — the 
same  word  which  Peter  uses  in  speaking  of  those  who  as 
brute  beasts  utterly  perish  in  their  own  corruption, — "  but 
he  that  soweth  to  the  Spirit  shall  reap  Life  Everlasting  " 
(zoe  aionios). 

"  What  fruit  had  ye  then,  in  those  things  whereof  ye 
are  now  ashamed?  For  the  end  of  those  things  is 
Death."  "But  now  being  made  free  from  sin  and 
become  the  servants  of  God,  ye  have  your  fruit  unto  holi- 
ness, and  the  end  Everlasting  Life."  "For  the  wages 
of  sin  is  Death;  but  the  gift  of  God  is  Eternal  Life 
through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VERSUS   DEATH.  227 

The  same  contrast  between  the  temporal  and  transitory- 
lot  of  all  who  choose  this  world  for  their  portion,  and  the 
enduring  inheritance  of  those  who  are  the  children  of 
God  by  a  new  birth,  is  found  in  the  Epistles  of  Peter 
and  John.  "Being  born  again,  not  of  corruptible  seed, 
but  of  i7icorruptible,  by  the  Word  of  God,  which  liveth 
and  abideth  forever.  For  all  flesh  is  as  grass,  and  all  the 
glory  of  man  as  the  flower  of  grass.  The  grass  wither- 
eth,  and  the  flower  thereof  falleth  away,  but  the  Word 
of  God  endureth  forever."  "The  world  passeth  away, 
and  the  lust  thereof  ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God 
abideth  forever."  "He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  Life, 
and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  the  Life." 

The  antithesis  here  is  not  between  future  happiness 
and  future  misery ;  but  between  Life  and  Death — Eter- 
nal Life — zoe  aionios,  and  thanatos  Death.  We  do  not 
say  Eternal  Death;  for  there  is  no  such  expression  in 
the  Scriptures.  We  find  it  in  modem  theology,  by  which 
is  meant  a  state  of  eternal  misery.  But  in  the  Scriptures 
we  simply  find  thanatos  death.  For  Death  itself  is  a 
finality,  and  our  natural  or  Adamic  death  would  have 
been  a  finality,  had  not  Christ  redeemed  us  all  from  this 
curse  of  the  law.  Hence  all  men  will  have  a  resurrec- 
tion ;  but  only  those  who  have  been  born  again  will  have 
a  resurrection  to  Eternal  Life.  "  The  rest  of  the  dead " 
rise  only  to  condemnation,  and  a  death  from  which  there 
is  no  resurrection.  It  is  therefore  called  the  Second 
Deaths  Deuteros  thanatos.  The  same  word  thanatos^ 
death  is  used  in  both  cases,  for  death  is  the  end  or  ending 
of  life,  of  whatever  kind  it  is.  But  in  the  case  of  the 
two  lives,  two  distinct  words  are  used,  for  the  two  lives, 
th.Q  psiiche  life  and  the  zoe  life  as  used  in  the  Scriptures 
are  quite  distinct  from  each  other ;  the  first,  as  we  have 
already  shown,  is  our  natural  life  which  is  transitory  j  the 


228  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

other  is  that  spiritual  life  which  we  receive  in  the  new 
birth.  This  is  Eternal  Life,  hence  it  is  called  zoe  aionios. 
The  Second  death  is  put  in  opposition  with  this.  If  it 
indicated  a  state  of  sin  and  suffering  which  is  eternal, 
there  is  no  reason  why  the  epithet  aionios^  Eternal, 
should  not  be  coupled  with  it  as  with  zoe^  the  new  or 
second  life.  But  this  epithet  is  never  joined  with  the 
word  death  in  the  Scriptures.  Death  is  the  negative  of 
life,  the  absence  of  life,  the  withdrawal  of  all  life  and  not 
a  state  or  condition  of  existence,  as  the  advocates  of  the 
doctrine  of  endless  sin  and  suffering  would  like  it  to  be. 

But  we  must  cut  short  our  citations  and  our  remarks 
on  them,  that  we  may  find  room  before  closing  this  chap- 
ter, for  the  pai-allel  contrast  which  Paul  has  drawn  in 
Romans,  Chapter  V.,  and  again  in  2  Corinthians  Chapter 
XV.,  between  the  First  and  the  Second  Adam. 

This  parallel  has  always  been  a  source  of  great  per- 
plexity to  those  who  hold  to  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  the 
natural  immortality  of  man.  And  well  it  may  be,  so 
long  as  they  hold  to  their  anti-scriptural  dogma.  They 
must  interpret  it  either  on  the  one  hand,  so  as  to  impugn 
the  justice  of  God,  or  on  the  other,  they  must  make  non- 
sense of  it.  But  if  they  could  be  persuaded  to  lay  aside 
their  blinding  theory  of  the  deathless  nature  of  man,  for 
the  time  being,  and  to  give  to  the  words  Life  and  Deaths 
which  are  the  key  words  in  the  contrast,  their  true  and 
natural  sense,  while  reading  it,  they  could  not  fail  to  see 
a  clearness  and  beauty  in  the  Apostle's  argument  of  which 
they  now  seem  to  have  no  conception. 

We  have  only  room  to  indicate  in  the  briefest  manner 
possible  the  main  points  in  this  parallel.  Adam  and 
Christ  stand  respectively  at  the  head  of  two  kingdoms  or 
dispensations ;  the  one  natural ;  the  other  spiritual.     The 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE   VEESUS   DEATH.  229 

natural  or  psuchical  is  first — "  afterward  that  which  is 
spiritual."  Adam  is  a  mere  creature.  He  possesses  at 
best,  but  a  derived  and  dependent  life.  Christ  as  the 
Almighty  Creator,  is  the  Source  and  Fountain  of  aU  Life. 
To  Adam,  as  an  individual,  was  offered,  and  to  us  also 
through  him  as  our  representative,  a  natural,  earthly  im- 
mortality— conditioned  upon  perfect  obedience — which 
was  liable  to  be  forfeited  at  any  moment  by  sin.  He  for- 
feited it,  both  for  himself  and  for  us  all  by  one  act  ol 
sin.  Christ  also  stood  before  the  same  law  in  the  flesh, 
that  He  might  become  a  perfect  Saviour.  His  obedience 
was  tested,  "  He  was  in  all  points  tempted,  as  we  are,  yet 
without  sin,"  and  through  Him  is  offered  to  us,  who  trust 
Him,  a  heavenly  immortality  which  cannot  be  forfeited 
or  lost. 

Adam  was  a  mere  earthly  creature — at  any  rate,  he  be- 
came such  after  his  sin — there  was  no  spiritual  life  in 
him ;  his  carnal  nature  was  predominant  and  all-controll- 
ing, therefore  he  could  not  be  otherwise  than  mortal  and 
transitory.  He  became  the  progenitor  of  a  race  like 
himself,  destitute  of  spiritual  life,  carnal,  selfish,  sinful 
and  necessarily  mortal — ^mortal  in  every  sense  of  the 
word.— Christ  was  a  Spiritual  Being ;  though  in  the  flesh 
for  a  time,  His  spiritual  nature  dominated  the  whole  man. 
This  nature  is  communicated  to  us  through  Him  by  a 
new  spiritual  birth.     "  Because  He  lives  we  live  also." 

Because  Adam  sinned,  we  all  must  die,  irrespective  of 
our  own  individual  deserts — even  those  "who  have  not 
sinned  after  the  similitude  of  his  transojression  come 
under  the  same  law  of  death  by  natural  inheritance. — 
Because  Christ  died  and  rose  again,  "we  shall  all  be 
made  alive,"  irrespective  of  our  individual  deserts.  Both 
the  death  of  the  body,  and  the  resurrection  of  the  body, 
are  equally  involuntary,  and  equally  comprehensive  of  the 


230  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

wliole  human  family,  and  both  without  regard  to  individ- 
ual moral  character.  But  there  is  a  life  beyond  the 
present  which  becomes  ours  only  by  our  individual  per- 
sonal union  to  Him  by  faith.  This  is  the  Life  Everlast- 
ing which  is  freely  given  to  all  who  accept  Him  as  their 
Saviour.  And  there  is  a  Death  beyond  the  present 
which  is  the  "  wages "  of  our  own  individual  sins,  and 
under  which  all  who  reject  Him  as  their  Saviour  must 
fall.  This  is  the  Second  Death  from  which  there  is  no 
recovery.  This  cannot  mean  "  spiritual  death,"  for  it  is 
the  penalty  of  sin,  and  to  suppose  that  God  inflicts  spir- 
itual death  or  alienation  of  heart  upon  any  man,  would 
be  absurd ;  neither  can  it  be  "  eternal  misery  "  ;  for  there 
cannot  be  a  first  and  a  second  eternal  misery.  Still  fur- 
ther, if  by  death,  eternal  sin  and  misery  be  meant,  as  tradi- 
tionalists assert,  then,  there  lias  been  no  redemption  from 
the  curse  of  the  law,  for  any  of  the  children  of  Adam. 
For  Christ  who  has  redeemed  us,  did  not  suffer  eternal 
sin  and  misery,  neither  will  the  redeemed  suffer  any  such 
penalty.  Still  further,  again ;  if  immortality  be  the  com- 
mon lot  of  all  men,  then  all  men  are  exempt  from  death. 
For  ^m-mortality  means  exemption  from  death,  and  this 
means  universal  salvation.  The  fact  is,  those  who  would 
construe  this  penalty  of  the  law  as  meaning  anything 
else  than  Death  in  the  plain  obvious  sense  of  the  word, 
involve  themselves  in  a  net-work  of  difficulties  and  absurd- 
ities from  which  there  is  no  exit,  so  long  as  they  hold  to 
their  philosojDhical  dogma  of  the  deathless  nature  of  man. 
But  Avhen  it  is  once  admitted  that  death  means  death, 
then  the  whole  economy  of  the  Law  and  its  penalty,  and 
of  our  redemption  from  its  curse  are  perfectly  clear  and 
the  justice  and  goodness  of  God  are  conspicuous.  Christ 
by  His  death  redeemed  us  all  from  the  penalty  of  the 
first  transgression  \  but  from  the  penalty  of  our  own  in- 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE   VEESUS   DEATH.  231 

dividual  sins,  there  is  no  escape  excepting  by  our  per- 
sonal, voluntary  acceptance  of  Him  as  our  Saviour, — 
Life-giver — and  the  salvation  He  offers;  and  this  penalty 
is  the  Second  death. 

What  may  be  the  disappointment,  dismay,  despair, 
and  rage  of  those  upon  whom  this  penalty  falls,  and  how 
long  their  miseries  may  be  protracted,  we  forbear  to 
guess.  We  only  know  that  they  are  in  the  hands  of  One 
who  is  holy,  just  and  good  ;  One  who  would  have  saved 
them  if  they  had  been  willing  to  become  fit  for  Eternal 
Life.  But  "the  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth,"  "the 
tribulation  and  anguish"  of  those  who  despised  and  re- 
jected the  offered  Saviour,  when  they  shall  see  "  many 
coming  from  the  East  and  the  West,  from  the  North  and 
South,  and  sitting  down  in  the  Kingdom  of  God  and 
themselves  thrust  out,"  are  not  the  penalty  which  is 
threatened, — they  are  only  its  accompaniments.  That 
penalty  is  Death  itself;  from  which  there  is  no  resurrec- 
tion. The  same  is  true  of  the  joys  of  the  saved.  These 
are  not  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ ;  they  are 
its  accompaniments,  the  gift  itself — the  "Unspeakable 
Gift " — is  Eternal  Life  ;  the  rewards  attendant  on  it 
depend  on  their  personal  faithfulness,  and  are  propor- 
tioned to  their  individual  deserts.  "The  wages  of  sin 
is  death,  but  the  gift  of  God  is  Eternal  Life  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord." 

To  one  who  inquired  of  Mr.  Spurgeon,  what  a  certain 
passage  of  Scripture  meant,  he  replied,  "  It  means  what 
it  says."  So  we  must  say  of  the  passage  just  quoted  and 
of  the  many  other  similar  passages  in  the  Word  of  God 
by  which  the  grand  distinction  between  the  saved  and 
the  unsaved  is  made  known  to  us.  Can  it  be  possible 
that  the  Scriptures  should  ring  out,  from  beginning  to 
end  with  these  two  words  Life  and  Death,  Life  and 


232  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

Death,  the  two  most  important  words  as  regards  the 
destiny  of  man  in  all  the  Bible ;  words  upon  which  the 
threatenings  of  the  Law  and  the  promises  of  the  Gospel 
are  hinged,  when  they  do  not  actually  mean  what  they 
say  ?  Can  it  be  possible  that  our  Lord  should  so  repeat- 
edly and  emphatically  represent  the  boon  which  He  came 
to  bring  to  perishing  men  as  the  boon  of  ^^  Life  from  the 
dead^^  "  Eternal  Life^"*  when  He  simply  meant  a  certain 
condition  of  life  ?  If  the  traditional  doctrine  of  the 
natural  immortality  of  all  men  be  true,  why  should  our 
Lord  so  uniformly  have  ignored  it,  yea,  why  should  He 
have  always  and  everywhere  claimed  that  it  is  His  pe- 
culiar prerogative  to  give  Eternal  Life,  and  never  once 
have  said  or  intimated  that  He  meant  by  this,  not  the 
gift  of  life  itself,  but  the  gift  of  purity  and  happiness  to 
men  already  immortal  by  nature  ? 

This  is  incredible.  Any  theory  of  man  that  requires 
such  a  perversion  of  the  plain  letter  of  God's  Word,  that 
throws  such  discredit  upon  the  sincerity  of  Him  whose 
name  is  Truth  to  sustain  itself,  must  be  founded  in  error.* 

*We  cannot  forbear  to  quote  a  few  sentences  from  a  recent 
tract  by  the  Rev.  W.  A.  Hobbs,  missionary  in  India,  that  has 
just  come  to  hand  entitled,  Everlasting  Life ;  What  is  it  f  and 
how  may  men  gain  it  f 

"To  understand  '  Everlasting  Life  ' — as  some  people  do— as  simply 
a  figure  of  speech  meaning  Everlasting  Happiness,  and  to  teacli  ig- 
norant persons  that  Everlasting  Life  and  Everlasting  Happiness  are 
one  and  the  same  thing — because  the  immortality  of  every  man  is 
already  presupposed  as  a  natural  endowment — is  a  gross  perversion 
of  the  real  meaning  of  words.  Such  an  attempt  to  tone  down 
the  meaning  of  the  word  Life,  probably  would  not  have  been  thought 
of  had  not  the  notion  that  God  created  human  beings  an  immortal 
race,  necessitated  the  giving  a  figurative  meaning  to  the  words 
*  Everlasting  Life,'  because  their  creed  forbade  acceptance  in  a 
literal  sense  of  such  terms  as  *  Perishing,'  '  Destruction,'  *  Second 
Death,'  etc.,  when  applied  by  Holy  Scripture  to  the  wicked  amongst 
men. 


Chap.  XII.]  LIFE    VEESUS   DEATH.  233 

**  Now  if  *  Everlasting  Life '  means  a  continuity  of  existence  in  a 
glorified  immortHl  body  (after  the  resurrection  to  Life)  for  the  be- 
liever in  Christ  only — as  contrasted  with  our  Lord's  reference  to  per- 
ishing in  the  case  of  the  unsaved — one  can  see  at  a  glance,  why  the 
Saviour  so  x>ersistently  used  these  specific  words: — But  if  all  men 
are  by  nature  immortal,  then  His  almost  exclusive  use  of  the  words 
'Life,*  and  'Eternal  Life'  in  relation  the  gift  of  God,  is  both  ob- 
scure and  unappreciable.  If  that  which  He  so  frequently  held  out 
as  a  privilege  to  men  of  faith  was  already  a  heritage,  be  it  for  weal 
or  woe,  of  the  whole  human  race,  it  would  seem  that  the  words 
Everlasting  Happiness  would  have  expressed  His  meaning  much 
more  clearly  :  but  the  fact  remains  that  no  less  than  thirty-seven 
times  He  called  the  blessing  He  had  to  give  *  Life,'  and  not  once 
did  He  speak  of  it  as  Happiness.  Surely,  it  is  much  more  rational 
to  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  intended  what  He  so  repeatedly  said, 
than  to  make  Him  say  what  the  words  do  not  mean— just  that  men 
may  hug  the  unwarrantable  notion  that  all  the  abominable  and 
spiritually  loathsome  members  of  our  race  are  stamped  with  the 
seal  of  Immortality." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

Texts  and  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Support 
THE  Traditional  Dogma. 

We  have  read,  with  much  care  and  attention,  all  the 
principal  and  more  widely  circulated  volumes  and  essays 
and  briefer  arguments  that  have  been  published  in  sup- 
port of  the  traditional  dogma  of  immortality  in  sin  and 
misery,  and  in  opposition  to  the  doctrine  of  Immortality 
only  in  Christ ;  but  as  we  hav^e  had  no  intention  of  re- 
viewing or  criticising  any  of  them  in  this  brief  volume, 
and  have  desired  especially  to  avoid  all  personalities 
and  to  confine  ourself  as  closely  as  possible,  to  the  ques- 
tion in  hand,  we  have  rarely  alluded  to  any  of  them  in 
the  foregoing  pages — excepting  in  two  or  three  instances 
when  it  could  not  well  be  avoided.  But  our  topic  in  this 
chapter,  seems  to  call  for,  at  least  a  passing  notice,  of 
the  arguments  and  methods  employed  by  these  writers. 
This  we  will  make  as  brief  and  impersonal,  as  possible. 

We  think,  then,  that  we  have  good  reason  to  complain 
of  the  method  they  pursue — for  they  all  pursue  substan- 
tially the  same  method.  It  seems  to  us  more  like — what 
is  called  among  lawyers — "  sharp  practice  "  or  "  special 
pleading,"  than  any  fair  attempt  to  answer  our  Scrip- 
tural arguments,  or  to  ascertain  and  set  forth  what  the 
Scriptures  really  do  teach  on  this  question. 

We  refer  not  now  to  the  sneering  and  contemptuous 
language  which  so  many  of  them  employ  toward  us. 
This  should  be  always  expected,  by  those  who  venture  to 
234 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   AEGITMENTS.  235 

question  any  venerable  and  popular  tradition — especially 
one  so  venerable  and  popular  as  this.  Nor  do  we  refer 
to  their  very  general  and  persistent  misrepresentation  of 
the  doctrine  we  hold  ;  for  this  is  a  very  common  de- 
vice of  men — of  many,  otherwise  good  men,  we  are 
sorry  to  say — when  they  are  hard  pressed  in  an  argu- 
ment. Hence  they  persist,  in  spite  of  our  remonstrance, 
in  calling  it  the  doctrine  of  Annihilation^ — implying — if 
they  do  not  actually  say  so,  that  we  are  advocating  a 
scientific  absurdity;  when  in  fact,  our  doctrine  is  just 
the  opposite  of  this ;  "*  not  the  doctrine  of  death,  but  of 
X^/e, — Eternal  Life  in  Christ.  They  must  know  that  it 
is  only  the  extinction  of  life,  the  destruction  of  the 
organization — of  the  personality  of  the  individual,  and 
not  of  the  materials  that  enter  into  that  composition, 
which  we  maintain.  As  for  the  term  annihilation,  it  is  no 
more  applicable  here,  than  when  any  living  animal  or 
thing  loses  its  life  and  its  individuality  by  disorganiza- 
tion and  decay. 

But  we  now  refer,  more  especially,  to  what  we  must 
call  a  sophistical  way  of  advocating  their  cause. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  they  assume  the  very  point  in 

♦The  author  of  Life  and  Death  Eternal  in  his  preface  boldly 
says:  "  We  have  commonly  employed  the  term  "  Annhilation" 
to  designate  the  cessation  of  existence  which  these  writers  ad- 
vocate. We  are  aware  that  many  of  them  object  to  the  term 
as  not  being  fully  expressive  of  their  mode  of  stating  and  ar- 
guing the  case.  We  would  only  say  that  we  cannot  be  de- 
barred the  use  of  a  convenient,  indeed  an  indispensable  term 
out  of  deference  to  their  preferences." 

It  may  indeed  be  convenient  and  even  indispensable  for  him 
to  misrepresent  and  stigmatize  the  doctrine  of  his  adversaries 
before  attempting  to  disprove  it,  but  is  it  honest  ?  He  well 
knows  it  is  not  a  question  of  annihilation,  as  that  term  is  gen- 
erally understood— the  annihilation  of  substance— but  simply 
of  the  destruction  of  the  individual. 


236  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II, 

question ; — the  natural  immortality  of  man,  or  rather  of 
the  soul  of  man,  as  they  prefer  to  phrase  it, — and  would 
in  this  way,  rule  us  out  of  court,  before  the  discussion 
begins. 

They  assume  that  there  is  an  "  existence "  which  is 
common  to  all  the  children  of  Adam,  the  saved  and  the 
unsaved  alike,  an  existence  that  is  indestructible.  They 
will  not  consent  to  have  this  existence  called  life,  though 
it  has  all  the  attributes  of  life ;  memory,  consciousness, 
the  capacity  to  enjoy  and  suffer ;  for  this  would  show 
at  once,  their  antagonism  to  the  Scriptures.  Of  course 
the  Life  (zoe),  which  is  promised  through  Christ,  and 
the  death  (thanatos),  which  is  the  penalty  of  sin  when 
it  is  finished,  cannot  be  understood  in  any  true  or  lit- 
eral sense.  They  must  be  figurative  expressions  to 
denote,  on  the  one  hand,  the  purity,  happiness  and 
blessedness  that  are  engrafted  upon  the  existence  of 
the  saved,  and  on  the  other,  the  pain,  misery  and 
wretchedness  that  are  inflicted  upon  the  existence  of 
the  lost.  In  other  words,  these  terms  *'  Life "  and 
"  Death,"  in  the  Scriptures,  when  man  is  spoken  of,  are 
to  be  taken  only  in  an  ethical  sense,  as  indicating  states 
or  conditions  of  existence.  They  evidently  experience 
great  difficulty  in  finding  any  substitute  for  these  plain 
terms  "  Life  "  and  "  Death."  One  of  them,  making  no 
distinction  between  cause  and  effect,  says  that  life  means 
"  union  with  God,"  and  death  means  "  separation  from 
Him" — Another,  that  life  is  "true  functional  action," 
and  death,  "  false  functional  action  "  ;  ignoring  entirely 
that  state  in  which  there  is  the  loss  of  all  functional  ac- 
tion, which  only  is  actual  death.  Another  says  that  life 
is  "  vitalizedness,"  and  death  "  unvitalizedness  "  !  By 
these,  and  various  other  definitions,  which  need  not  to  be 
cited,  and  by  the  habitual  explanation  and  use  of  thesQ 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  237 

words  in  an  ethical  and  tropical  sense,  as  denoting  a  state 
of  purity  and  blessedness  for  the  saved,  and  of  sin  and 
misery  for  the  lost,  on  the  part  of  these  authors  and  com- 
mentators and  teachers  generally,  who  would  sustain 
this  dogma,  this  has  come  to  be  quite  commonly  under- 
stood to  be  the  Scriptural  sense  of  these  terms,  when  the 
destiny  of  man  is  spoken  of.  They  seem  to  think  it 
strange  that  we  will  not  accept  of  these  definitions  and 
explanations.  They  charge  us  with  adhering  too  closely 
to  the  literal  interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  and  of  per- 
verting or  misunderstanding  the  meaning  of  this  word 
"  existence."  But  is  it  not  they  who  misinterpret  it  to 
serve  their  own  convenience  ? 

It  ought  to  be  evident  to  every  reflecting  person,  that 
existence  is  a  broader  word  than  either  life  or  death. 
Anything  that  is,  may  be  said  to  exist,  whether  it  have 
life  or  not ;  as  for  instance,  a  particle  of  matter,  a  stone, 
an  animal,  or  a  man.  But  anything,  of  which  life  is  the 
chief  or  essential  attribute,  cannot  be  said  to  exist  as 
such,  without  life.  For  example,  an  animal  cannot  prop- 
erly be  said  to  exist  as  an  animal,  after  life  is  gone. 
What  is  an  animal?  "It  is  an  organized  liviiighemg, 
endowed  with  sensation,  and  the  power  of  voluntary 
action"  (Webster).  Of  course,  if  these  essential  quali- 
ties of  sensation  and  voluntary  motion  which  constitute 
an  animal,  are  wanting,  something  may  exist  in  its  place, 
but  surely  it  is  not  an  animal.  It  may  be  the  dead  body, 
or  the  bones,  or  the  skin,  or  the  remains  of  an  animal,  but 
not  the  animal  itself.  Much  more,  is  this  true  of  a  soul, 
which  is  life  itself;  for  the  same  terms  nephesh  (Heb.), 
psuche  (Greek),  are  alternatively  and  almost  indifferently 
translated  "soul"  and  "life"  in  the  Scriptures.  What-  - 
ever  difference  philosophy  may  have  taught  us  to  put 
upon  these  terms,  at  the  present  day,  their  meaning  is 


238  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

nearly  or  quite  identical  in  the  Scriptures.  We  main- 
tain then,  that  the  existence  of  a  life  without  life,  or  a 
soul  without  life,  which  is  all  that  constitutes  it  a  soul,  is 
an  impossibility.  And  especially  to  talk  of  a  soul  having 
all  the  attributes  of  life,  such  as  consciousness,  memory, 
the  capacity  to  suffer  and  the  power  of  action,  and  yet 
without  life,  is  to  talk  nonsense,  or  fiction.  And  yet  this 
is  what  they  charge,  not  merely  upon  the  poetical  por- 
tion of  God's  Word,  but  upon  its  plain,  sober,  judicial 
portions,  yea  upon  all  its  utterances  on  this  question  of 
the  future  lot  of  man. 

They  not  only  assume  for  themselves  the  very  point  to 
be  proved, — the  necessary  immortality  or  eternal  exist- 
ence of  all  men, — but  carry  it  with  them,  into  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Scriptures,  and  would  have  us  to  do  the 
same.  And  when  we  ask  them  to  point  us  to  one  single 
passage  in  which  any  such  doctrine  is  asserted,  they  say 
that  these  inspired  writers  of  Scripture  assume  it  also,  as 
well  as  themselves ;  that  it  is  so  evident  as  to  require  no 
such  formal  setting  forth.  And  then  in  default  of  any 
such  testimony,  they  do  not  hesitate — as  we  have  al- 
ready sufficiently  shown,  in  a  previous  chapter — to  take 
those  passages  which  predicate  Immortality  of  the  right- 
eous alone^  wliich  are  very  numerous,  and  apply  them  to 
all  men  indiscriminately,  in  this  way  setting  at  naught 
the  real  essential  distinction,  which  the  Scriptures  every- 
where make,  between  the  righteous  and  the  wicked ; 
namely,  that  of  Life  and  Death. 

Coming  then  to  the  argument  with  an  assumption  that 
begs  the  whole  question,  and  discarding  the  very  first 
principles  of  fair  argumentation  and  Scriptural  interpre- 
tation, it  would  be  strange  indeed,  if  among  all  the  many 
passages  relating  to  sin  and  its  fearful  consequences,  the 
miseries  it  brings  in  this  life,  and  the  certain  ruin  to 


Chap.  XIII.]  TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  239 

which  it  leads,  and  especially,  those  that  depict  the  re- 
mediless condition  of  those  who  reject  the  Gospel,  some 
might  not  be  found,  that  could  be  so  interpreted  as  to 
seem  to  favor  the  doctrine  of  endless  misery.  The  char- 
acter of  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  is  such;  its  utter- 
ances are  expressed  in  such  a  variety  of  ways  and  con- 
nections, and  they  are  so  scattered  throughout  the  whole 
Volume,  that,  by  taking  isolated  passages  here  and  there, 
it  is  not  difficult  if  one  is  so  disposed,  to  make  out  a 
plausible  case,  in  behalf  of  any  proposition  he  may  wish 
to  argue.  Hence  there  has  never  been  any  notion  so 
wild  and  misleading,  or  so  contrary  to  the  general  spirit 
and  tenor  of  God's  Word,  that  its  partisans  have  not  been 
able,  by  seeking  for  it,  to  find  some  apparent  encour- 
agement in  that  Word  for  it,  and  to  produce  their 
"  proof  texts  "  in  its  favor.  It  is  of  no  avail  whatever,  to 
cite  any  number  of  passages,  that  contradict  their  doctrine, 
however  clear  and  explicit  they  may  be ;  for  they  know 
how  to  explain  them  all  away,  or  to  read  another  mean- 
ing into  them,  or  at  least  to  offset  them  by  certain  other 
texts,  taken  from  the  poets,  sacred  or  profane,  ih  which 
the  same  or  similar  words  or  forms  of  exj^ression  are 
used  in  a  figurative  sense.  As  the  cunning  magicians  of 
Pharaoh,  who  confronted  Moses  when  he  attempted  to 
prove  by  the  exhibition  of  an  actual  miracle,  that  he 
spoke  by  Divine  authority,  were  able  to  match  it  by  a 
spurious  one  of  their  own  devising,  and  in  this  way  to  nul- 
lify its  influence  and  to  harden  the  heart  of  their  master 
against  the  truth  ;  so  the  advocates  of  false  doctrines,  by 
adroit  and  too  often  unscrupulous  methods,  are  able  to 
"pervert  the  right  ways  of  the  Lord,"  and  to  blind  the 
minds  of  their  followers  to  His  truth. 

If    you  grant   to   the   advocates    of    this   traditional 
dogma  the  privilege   of    begging  the    question   to    be 


240  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

proved,  in  the  outset,  and  of  assuming  that  the  Sacred 
writers  take  it  for  granted  without  asserting  it,  and  then, 
of  changing  the  meaning  of  all  the  plain  Scriptural 
words,  that  contradict  their  theory,  and  of  reading  their 
own  views  into  passages  that  do  not  otherwise  express 
them,  and  still  further,  of  offsetting  all  the  direct  and 
literal  assertions  of  God's  Word,  in  regard  to  the  death 
and  destruction  of  the  wicked,  by  certain  other  passages 
wherever  they  can  be  found,  in  which  similar  expressions 
are  used  in  a  figurative  sense,  it  is  impossible  but  that 
they  should  be  able  to  make  some  show  of  an  argument 
in  favor  of  their  cause.  And  yet  this  is  the  privilege 
which  they — or,  at  least,  many  of  them,  claim. 

In  the  volume  entitled  Life  and  Death  Eternal^  many 
pages — indeed  one  whole  chapter — is  devoted  to  this  one 
object  of  showing  that  the  terms,  "death,"  "destruc- 
tion," "  perdition,"  and  the  many  other  terms  in  which 
the  lot  of  the  wicked  is  described,  are  never  to  be  taken 
in  their  true,  literal  sense,  because,  forsooth,  in  the  book 
of  Job,  and  elsewhere,  similar  expressions  are  used  in  a 
figurative  sense.  The  author  takes  up  these  various 
terms  seriatim^  and  finds  something  to  match  them,  of  a 
tropical  import,  in  some  other  portion  of  the  Bible  ; 
This  is  what  he  himself  avows,  in  his  table  of  contents, 
as  the  substance  of  Chapter  lY. 

"  Anniliilationists  attempt  to  press  several  other  words 
and  phrases  "  (having  considered  the  term  "  death  "  in  a 
foregoing  chapter)  "to  their  support. — The  attempt  re- 
futed in  the  following  instances  :  destroy  and  destruction ; 
perish  and  perdition ;  lose  and  lost ;  consume  and  de- 
vour ;  tear  in  pieces,  break  in  pieces  ;  grind  to  powder ; 
cut  off ;  blot  out ;  not  be  ;  be  as  nothing ;  be  naught ; 
end ;  burn ;  burn  up  ;  put  under  his  feet.  The  futility 
of  the  annihilational  argument  shown  by  numerous  quo- 
tations from  the  Mouth  of  Joh^  who,  while  uttering  them, 
should  have  been  extinct  more  than  twenty  times." 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  241 

Therefore — for  this  is  the  conclusion  to  which  he 
would  lead  us — whatever  is  said  in  the  Scriptures  by 
God  Himself,  or  by  His  inspired  servants,  or  by  Jesua 
Christ  and  His  disciples,  soberly,  positively,  judicially, 
by  way  of  warning  and  threatening,  of  the  penalty  of 
sin,  and  of  its  sure  and  certain  results,  is  not  to  be  taken 
in  any  true  and  literal  sense,  as  meaning  what  is  said,  hn% 
only  in  such  a  poetical,  mythical,  transcendental  sense,  as 
the  i^hilosophy  of  Plato  may  find  it  convenient  to  accord 
to  it! 

Those  who  have  been  educated  under  the  influence  of 
this  system  of  philosophy,  and  have  followed  the  lead  of 
these  teachers,  without  any  careful  examination  of  the 
Scriptures  for  themselves  on  this  question,  are  under  the 
impression  that  this  heathen  dogma,  of  the  necessary  im- 
mortality of  all  souls,  and  the  consequent  doom  of  endless 
sin  and  misery  of  the  unsaved,  is  abundantly  taught  in 
the  Word  of  God.  But  when  they  come  to  investigate 
this  point  for  themselves  in  an  independent  manner — if 
they  ever  do, — they  are  surprised  to  find,  not  merely,  that 
it  is  not  taught  at  all  in  the  Scriptures,  but  that  there  are 
BO  few,  so  very  few  texts  to  be  found  in  all  the  Bible,  that 
can  be  made  to  give  any  encouragement  to  such  a  con- 
clusion. Tliere  is  scarcely  any  other  false  doctrine  of  the 
Papal  church,  which  we,  as  Protestants,  admit  to  be 
false,  that  cannot  make  a  better  show  of  support  than 
this.  We  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm,  after  the  most  thor- 
ough examination,  that  there  are  not  more  than  half  a 
dozen  passages  in  all  the  Bible,  that  would  even  suggest 
the  idea  of  endless  sin  and  suffering,  to  one  who  did  not 
bring  with  him  to  its  reading,  this  thought  in  his  own 
mind.  It  is  only  by  first  reading  this  doctrine  into  these 
few  texts,  and  putting  them  into  false  connections,  and 
repeating  them  over  and  over  again,  and  ringing  changes 
11 


242  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

on  certain  specious  epithets  they  contain,  that  this  cause 
is  saved  from  absolute  beggary. 

We  propose  now,  to  examine  critically,  these  half  a 
dozen  texts,  not  that  we  may  "  explain  them  away,"  as  is 
sometimes  said,  but  that  we  may  bring  them  back  again 
to  their  true  meaning,  from  which  they  have  been  per- 
verted— that  we  may  recover  them,  like  the  sacred  ves- 
sels, from  the  hands  of  the  Philistines,  and  set  them  in 
their  riglitful  place  in  the  tabernacle  of  God. 

The  following  passage  in* Isaiah  33  :  14.  "  Who  among 
us  shall  dwell  with  devouring  fire  ?  who  araons:  us  shall 
dwell  with  everlasting  burnings?"  is  sometimes  quoted 
to  help  out  the  rhetoric  of  those  who  are  trying  to  de- 
scribe the  torments  of  the  lost,  and  to  give  as  lurid  a 
glare  as  possible  to  the  picture.  It  is  possible  that 
unlettered,  and  superficial  readers  may  be  led  to  suppose 
that  the  prophet  is  here  speaking  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
lost  in  hell ;  but  the  most  cursory  glance  at  the  context 
will  show,  that  the  future  state  is  not  here  in  question, 
but  he  refers  simply  to  the  temporal  miseries  that  are  in- 
flicted upon  his  people  by  their  enemies.  And  in  any 
case  the  evident  reply  which  his  exclamatory  inquiry  in- 
vites is,  "  No  one  can  endure  them."  There  are,  perhaps, 
two  or  three  other  similar  expressions  of  impassioned  out- 
bursts of  feeling  which  we  need  not  stop  to  notice  in  this 
category ;  for  no  intelligent  reader  can  mistake  their 
meaning,  or  regard  them  as  having  any  relevancy  to  the 
question  under  consideration. 

Without  stopping  to  comment  on  this,  or  other  ir- 
relevant passages,  we  now  proceed  to  examine  in  their 
order  these  half  a  dozen  texts,  upon  which  the  advocates 
of  the  doctrine  of  endless  sin  and  misery  j)rincipally  rely 
for  the  su23port  of  their  cause. 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  243 

I. 

Daniel  12:  1.  ^^And  many  of  them  that  sleep  in  the 
dust  of  the  earth  shall  awake^  some  to  everlasting  life^ 
and  some  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt.^'' 

There  are  various  translations  of  this  passage ;  that 
given  by  Tregelles,  who  will  not  be  suspected  of  having 
any  heretical  bias,  together  with  other  eminent  Hebrew 
scholars,  renders  it  thus :  "  And  many^  from  among  the 
sleepers  of  the  dust,  shall  awake ;  these  (who  awake) 
shall  be  unto  everlasting  life ;  but  those  (the  rest  of  the 
sleepers  who  do  not  awake)  shall  be  unto  shame  and 
everlasting  contempt."  So  also  the  learned  Aben  Ezra, 
in  his  commentary  on  this  chapter,  quotes  Rabbi  Saadias 
as  declaring  that,  "  Those  who  awake  shall  be  (appointed) 
to  everlasting  life,  and  those  who  do  not  awake,  shall  be 
(doomed)  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  Accept- 
ing this  as  the  true  rendering,  as  is  probable  from  the 
context,  there  is  no  reference  here  at  all  to  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  wicked,  but  only  to  that  of  the  righteous,  in 
what  is  termed  the  First  resurrection,  at  the  second  ad- 
vent of  i^hrist,  immediately  aftpr  "  the  great  tribulation," 
as  depicted  in  the  first  verse  of  this  chapter,  and  more 
fuUy  described  in  Matt.  24:  21-30. 

But  whatever  may  be  the  true  rendering,  the  reader 
should  observe  how  this  epithet,  everlasting^  is  applied ; 
first  to  the  life  of  the  righteous,  which  is  declared  to  be 
"  everlasting  life,"  and  secondly  to  the  contempt   (or  ab- 
horring, which  is  the  rendering  given  to  the  same  word 
Is.  66 :  24),  with  which  the  wicked  shall  ever  be  re- 
garded by  the  rigliteous.     This  contempt,  the  righteous, 
^ho  will  live  forever,  may  well  entertain  forever  toward 
ill  the  wicked  who  perish,  as  we  now  entertain  a  con- 
tempt for  the  treachery  of  Judas,  eighteen  centuries  after 
le  has  passed  away.    Hence  it  is  called  in  the  text "  ever- 


244  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

lasting  contempt."  But  as  for  the  shame^  which  is  sub- 
jective on  the  part  of  the  wicked,  and  may  be  supposed 
to  be  felt  by  themselves — the  inspired  writer  is  careful 
not  to  characterize  it  by  the  epithet  everlasting ;  for  the 
passage  reads  "  shame  and  everlasting  contempt."  And 
yet  many  quote  this  passage  thus :  "  Everlasting  shame 
and  contempt,"  and  charge  the  inspired  prophet — whether 
inadvertently  or  for  the  purpose  of  strengthening  their 
position,  we  will  not  decide — with  saying  just  what  he 
was  so  careful  not  to  say.  The  author  of  Life  and  Death 
Eternal^  we  are  sorry  to  notice,  does  this  same  thing,  a3 
follows : 

"  The  two  eternal  conditions  proceed  cotemporane- 
ously.  Daniel  12:2,  also  describes  in  the  same  utter- 
ance the  *  life '  of  the  righteous  and  the  '  shame '  of 
the  wicked  by  the  same  epithet  '  everlasting.'  It  cannot 
without  violence  be  understood  otherwise  than  as  declar- 
ing them  to  be  equally  and  in  the  same  sense  everlast- 
ing"!! (p.  332.) 

The  above  text  is  the  only  solitary  one,  that  we  know 
of,  in  all  the  Old  Testament,  that  seems  to  be  available 
for  the  support  of  the  dogma  we  are  opposing^  And 
even  this  has  no  force  whatever  in  this  direction,  except- 
ing by  mistranslating  and  misquoting  it. 

11. 

Coming  now  to  the  N^ew  Testament,  the  first  text 
that  claims  our  attention  is  the  following : 
3    Matt.  25:  46.     ^^  And  these  shall  go  away  into  ever- 
lasting punishment :  hut  the  righteous  into  life  eternal^"* 

1.  The  Gospel  of  Matthew  was  written  especially  for 
the  Jews,  and  no  doubt,  originally,  in  the  Hebrew  lan- 
guage. The  Greek  text,  which  we  now  have,  is  sup- 
posed to  be  a  translation  from  the  Hebrew,  and  our  ver- 
sion is  made  not  directly  from  the  Hebrew  manuscript, 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  245 

which  is  lost,  but  from  the  Greek,  and  is  a  translation  of 
a  translation.  In  some  of  the  earlier  Latin  versions, 
which  were  probably  made  from  the  Hebrew,  the  words 
which  are  rendered  "  eternal  punishment "  from  the  Greek 
kolasin  aidnion,  are  in  those  Latin  versions,  not  sup' 
plicium  ceternum,  "  eternal  punishment,"  but  ig7iem  mter- 
num^  "  eternal  fire."  This  is  probably  the  true  rendering, 
as  it  is  the  expression  used  in  verse  41,  and  elsewhere. 
There  is,  however,  no  important  doctrine  involved  in  this 
question  of  the  true  rendering, — unless  one  should  insist 
on  giving  an  exclusively  subjective  meaning  to  the  word 
{kolasin)  punishment,  in  the  interest  of  the  traditional 
dogma  of  endless  suffering,  as  some  of  our  opponents 
are  inclined  to  do ;  this,  by  the  way,  may  account  for 
the  substitution  of  the  word  kolasin  in  the  place  of 
ignem;  for  we  shall  find,  that  other  passages  bearing  on 
this  question,  have  evidently  been  tampered  with  to  give 
them  more  force  in  this  direction.  But,  accepting  of  the 
common  rendering,  it  is  to  be  remarked : 

2.  That  neither  this  nor  any  other  rendering  of  the  text 
will  sustain  the  impression,  once  very  commonly  enter- 
tained, that  this  scene  is  intended  to  represent  the  general 
judgment  of  mankind  as  individuals  consequent  on  the 
resurrection.  Nothing  is  here  said  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  dead,  nor  of  salvation  by  grace  through  Christ,  nor 
indeed  of  individuals  as  such.  But  we  are  expressly 
told,  it  is  the  judgment  of  the  "  nations,"  or  rather  of 
the  Gentiles,  at  the  second  coming  of  Christ.  Our 
translators  probably  understood  it  according  to  the 
popular  impression,  as  representing  the  final  judgment 
of  all  mankind,  after  the  resurrection.  Therefore,  by 
suppressing  the  little  ;vord  "  ^a,"  the,  and  by  rendering 
the  phrase  "  ta  panta  ethne^  all  nations — instead  of  all 
the  Gentiles^  as  they  usually — in  more  than  ninety  in 


246  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part   II. 

stances, — have  rendered  it,  they  have  done  what  they 
could  to  sustain  the  popular  impression.  The  word  ta^ 
the,  is  however  restored  in  the  Revised  version  and  the 
phrase  is  rendered  "  all  the  nations."  It  would  have 
more  exactly  expressed  the  sense  in  which  those  Jews, 
to  whom  our  Lord  spoke,  understood  it,  if  it  had  been 
rendered  "  all  the  Gentile  nations  " ;  for  this  was  their 
usual  way  of  designating  all  other  nations  of  the  world 
but   their   own. 

It  will  be  seen  by  referring  to  the  chapters  immediately 
preceding,  that  our  Lord  had  been  uttering  a  series  of 
parables — jjarables  of  judgment,  of  which  this  is  the 
seventh  and  last.  Most  of  the  others  may  perhaps  be  re- 
garded as  more  especially  applicable  to  the  people  of  the 
Jewish  nation.  This  seems  to  have  been  uttered  in  an- 
swer to  the  inquiry  of  His  disciples  (Chap.  24 :  3),  "  What 
shall  be  the  sign  of  thy  coming,  and  of  the  consummation 
of  the  age?"  {seemarginal  reading  in  Memsed  Version), 
and  is  of  a  more  general  character.  Hence,  He  replies, 
"  When  the  Son  of  Man  shall  come  in  His  glory,  and  all 
the  holy  angels  with  Him,  then  shall  He  ait  on  the  throne 
of  His  glory,  and  before  Him  shall  be  gathered  all  the 
nations,"  etc.-  While  it  seems  quite  evident  that  this 
should  be  understood  as  a  prophetic  parable  referring  to 
the  judgment  of  the  nations  of  the  world,  at  the  second 
coming,  we  have  no  purpose  to  serve  in  construing  it, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  Jewish  nation,  but  to  bring  out 
the  truth,  which  our  Lord  intended  to  express,  and  which 
they  understood  Him  to  utter.  Nor  indeed,  have  we  any 
other  anxiety  or  desire  to  correct  the  popular  impression 
concerning  it,  as  a  description  of  the  general  judgment  of 
mankind  after  having  been  raised  from  the  dead.* 

*  "  This  chapter  describes  a  judgment  of  the  living  nations  of 
mankind  by  the  Son  of  Man.    This,  however,  does  not  exclude 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND    AEGUMENTS.  247 

Let  it  be  so  understood  if  any  one  so  desires  and  we 
will  proceed ; 

3.  To  notice  the  rendering  of  this  word  aidnios.  ^It 
occurs  twice  in  this  verse ; — kolasin  aidnion^  and  zoen 
aiunion; — in  the  first  instance,  it  is  rendered  "  everlasting 
punishment,"  and  in  the  second,  "life  eternaV  It 
should  have  had  the  same  rendering  in  both  cases,  and 
so  it  has  in  our  Revised  Version.  It  would  not  seem 
necessary  to  call  attention  to  so  small  a  matter  were  it 
not  for  the  fact,  that  some  are  inclined  to  regard*  the 
word  everlasting  as  having  more  strength  and  force  than 
the  word  eternal.  Perhaps  the  original  translators  did  ; 
for  they  have  most  evidently  in  other  instances,  if  not  in 
this,  shown  all  the  favor  they  possibly  could  to  the  tradi- 
tional doctrine,  which  relies  on  these  few  passages  for 
support.  Whether  this  word  here  is  to  be  taken  in  its 
fullest  sense  of  endlessness,  or  in  an  indefinite  sense,  or 
in  the  more  limited  sense  of  an  age-long  period,  which  it 
often  has,  it  certainly  has  the  same  meaning  and  should 
have  had  the  same  rendering  in  both  cases ;  for  the  allot- 
ments of  both  classes  are  plainly  represented  as  parallel 
and  synchronous. 

4.  But  granting  that  this  passage  describes  the  gen- 
eral judgment  of  individuals,  and  that  aidnios  is  to  be 
taken  here  in  the  infinite  sense  of  endlessness,  it  is  not 
to  be  assumed,  nor  conceded,  that  kolasin^  if  this  were 
the  true  original  term,  is  to  be  understood  merely  in  a 
subjective  sense,  as  meaning  simply  suffering,  as  our  op- 

the  thought  that  His  work  of  judgment  comprehends  also  the 
generation  of  the  dead.  But  here  is  portrayed  the  period  of 
of  crisis  and  culmination  in  His  work  of  judgment,  so  far  as 
the  earth  is  the  area  of  it.  Other  Scriptures,  as  for  example 
Kev.  20,  teach  tliat  it  must  ultimately  extend  itself  through 
all  the  regions  of  the  dead,  until  even  death  and  hell  are  cast 
into  the  lake  of  fire."  The  Mystery  of  Creation,  p.  166.  Rev. 
L.  C.  Bakeb. 


248  THE    UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part   II. 

ponents  would  have  it.*  It  has  an  objective  and  admin- 
istrative sense,  which  they  would  ignore,  if  they  could. 
There  may  be  a  punishment  of  deprivation,  as  well  as 
tliat  of  stripes.  It  is  the  barbarian's  notion  of  punish- 
ment to  make  it  consist  entirely,  or  as  much  as  possible, 
of  positive  pain  and  agony  prolonged  to  the  utmost 
limit.  During  the  dark  ages  this  was  the  kind  of  pun- 
ishment, it  was  supposed,  that  God  would  inflict,  and 
tradition  has  handed  down  the  notion  to  this  day,  among 
a  certain  class  of  theologians.  But  under  all  Christian 
and  civilized  governments,  now  existing,  punishment  is 
vindicative,  rather  than  vindictive;  it  is  not  so  much 
the  object  of  wise  rulers,  to  see  how  much  agony  they 
can  inflict  upon  offenders,  and  how  long  they  can  pro- 
tract it,  as  how  they  can  best  maintain  the  authority  and 
majesty  of  the  government.  Hence,  punishment  con- 
sists more  largely  of  the  denial  of  privileges  that  other- 
wise might  have  been  enjoyed,  and  in  the  deprivation  of 
rights  that  have  been  forfeited.  The  very  highest  kind 
of  punishment,  called  "capital  punishment,"  consists  of 
taking  away  the  life  of  the  criminal,  and  yet  this  is  in- 
flicted with  as  little  pain  as  possible !  So,  under  the 
Divine  government,  those  sinners  who  are  found  in  the 
judgment  to  be  unworthy  to  live,  and  whose  names  are 
blotted  out  of  "  The  Book  of  Life,"  whether  they  are  cast 
at  once  into  the  fires  of  Gehenna,  like  the  tares  from  the 
wheat  field,  or  the  chaff  from  the  threshing  floor,  to 
which  they  are  compared,  or  whether  they  are  left  to 
"  perish  in  their  own  corruption,"  may  truly  be  said  to 
be  punished,  not  merely  while  the  process  of  destruction 
is  going  on,  but  when  it  is  finished,  to  have  suffered  an 

*This  is  the  position  of  the  author  of  Life  and  Death  Eternal. 
He  labors  earnestly  through  two  or  three  chapters  (see  Chaps. 
VI.  and  VII.),  to  maintain  it.  *'  Future  punishment  consists  in 
Buffering,"  is  the  caption  of  one  of  the  chapters. 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  249 

"  eternal  punishment."  For  they  have  been  cut  off  from 
privileges  which  will  be  enjoyed  forever  by  others,  and 
which  they  also  might  have  forever  enjoyed,  but  for 
their  sins,  and  their  rejection  of  the  salvation  once 
offered  them.  There  is  nothing  said  of  torment  in  the 
text.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  word,  kolasis,  to  in- 
dicate it.  It  simply  reads  "everlasting  punishment." 
The  verb  kolazo^  from  which  this  noun  is  derived,  means 
"to  prune,"  "to  cut  off,"  "to  check,"  "to  repress,"  as 
well  as  "  to  inflict  torture  "  ;  and  this  idea  of  cutting  off 
forever,  expresses  quite  as  well,  if  not  better,  the  mean- 
ing of  the  noun  kolasis.  And  when  we  find  the  punish- 
ment of  sin  everywhere  else  in  the  Word  of  God  de- 
clared to  be  deaths  and  when  in  2  Thes.  1 :  9,  this  is  ex- 
pressly said  to  be  the  punishment  of  everlasting  de- 
struction, what  right  has  any  one  to  say  it  is  not  ? 

5.  We  often  hear  it  said,  that  this  text  proves  that 
the  torments  of  the  lost  will  endure  as  Ipng  as  the 
joys  of  the  saved.  It  proves  no  such  thing.  If,  in- 
deed, the  comparison  here  were  between  the  torments  of 
the  one  class  and  the  joys  of  the  other,  one  might  very 
properly  draw  this  inference.  But  there  is  no  such  com- 
parison in  the  text.  It  is  forced  into  this  passage  by  the 
reader  himself.  What  then  is  the  comparison,  or  rather 
the  contrast 'here  instituted?  It  is  between  the  allot- 
ments of  these  two  classes.  To  the  one  it  is  the  allot- 
ment of  Everlasting  Life.  Of  course  this  life  is  pure 
and  joyful,  or  it  could  not  be  everlasting ;  it  is  the 
life  of  Christ  Himself  in  His  people,  which,  of  necessity, 
endures  forever.  But  nothing  is  said  of  their  joys  in 
the  passage.  To  the  other,  it  is  just  the  opposite, — the 
loss  of  this  Everlasting  Life  ;  it  is  the  punishment  of 
death  and  destruction.  Whatever  pains  may  be  in- 
flicted, or  whatever  anguish  endured  in  the  process, 
11* 


250  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  11. 

nothing  is  said  of  these  here.  And  most  evidently  the 
contrast  is  not  completed  till  the  death,  from  which  there 
is  no  recall  ensues  :  "  Sin,  when  it  is  finished^  bringeth 
forth  deathr  * 

Kow  whether  this  prophetic  parable  be  interpreted 
as  referring  to  the  judgment  of  the  nations  at  the  second 
advent,  or  that  of  individuals  at  the  last  day,  the  lesson 
taught  is  the  same.  If  to  the  former,  it  agrees  perfectly 
with  what  is  said  elsewhere,  in  the  Psalms  and  by  the 
prophets,  of  the  utter  destruction  of  those  nations  that 
do  not  conform  to  the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  Gospel — 
"  For  the  nation  and  kingdom  that  will  not  serve  Thee 
shall  perish ;  yea  those  nations  shall  be  utterly  wasted ! " 
if  to  the  latter,  it  is  what  we  are  abundantly  told,  from 
the  beginning  to  tlie  end  of  the  Scriptures,  "that  only 
the  good  wheat  will  be  gathered  into  the  garner  for  eter- 
nal preservation,  and  that  the  chaff  will  be  burned  up 
with  unquenchable  fire." 

6.  Perhaps  we  should  not  leave  this  passage  without 
remarking  on  the  phrase  {eis  to  pur  to  aibnion)  "  ever- 
lasting tire  (in  verse  41)  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 

*The  certainty  that  the  blessedness  of  the  righteous  will  be 
truly  everlasting  does  not  depend  altogether  on  the  use  of  the 
adjective  aiunios,  in  connection  with  the  life  promised  to 
them.  We  are  assured  of  this  by  a  great  variety  of  expres- 
sions. The  heavenly  inheritance  is  declared  to  be  "  incorrup- 
tible, undefined  and  unfading,"  and  "the  crown  of  glory  one 
that  fadeth  not  away."  "This  corruptible  must  put  on  in- 
corruption,  and  this  mortal  put  on  immortality."  The  future 
life  of  Christ's  faithful  servants  is  set  forth  as  flowing  from 
Him,  and  being  like  unto  His  life.  "  Because  He  lives,  they 
shall  live  also."  "He  is  their  life."  "They  shall  be  made 
like  unto  Him."  "  Whether  they  wake  or  sleep,  they  are  to 
live  together  with  Him."  ''They  are  to  be  forever  (pantote), 
with  the  Lord."  "Their  vile  bodies  are  to  be  changed  and 
fashioned  like  unto  His  glorious  body."  Appeal  to  Scripture. 
Rev.  J.  Barton. 


Chap.  XIII.]         TEXTS    AND   ARGUMENTS.  251 

angels."     The  same  phrase  occurs  in  Matt.  18  :  8.     But 
elsewhere,  as  in  Mark  9  :  43  (which  we  will  notice  in  its 
proper  place),  also  in  Matt.  3  :  12,  an^  Luke  3  :  17,  the 
epithet  asbestos,  unquenchable,  is  used, — to  designate  a 
fire  that  is  irresistible,  that  cannot  be  stayed  from  doing 
its  work  of  destruction.     But  whether  the  epithet  asbes- 
tos^ unquenchable,  or  aidnios,  eternal,  be  predicated  of 
the  fire,  nothing  of  the  sort  is  predicated  of  the  wicked 
who  are  cast  into  it.      If   one  chooses   to  understand 
these  words  in  their  absolute  and  unlimited  sense,  we  do 
not  care  to  contest  the  point  with  him.     Be  it  that  this 
element  is  perpetual  and  eternal  in  its  existence  and  ever 
ready  to  do  the  bidding  of  the   Supreme  Ruler,  if  one 
wishes  so  to  understand  these  expressions.     But  surely, 
this  gives  him  no  warrant  for  transferring  these  epithets 
to  the  worthless  material  that  is  cast  into  it  to  be  con- 
sumed.    The  fire  of  Gehenna,  in  the  valley  of  Hinnom, 
is  said  to  have  been  continually  kept  up — not  because 
the  carcasses  that  were  thrown  into  it  were  never  con- 
sumed,  but  because   it   was  continually  supplied   with 
fresh  material  for  consumption.     What  may  have  been 
the  uses  of  this  fire  of  God  in  the  eternal  past,  or  what 
may  be  its  uses  in  the  eternal  future  in  burning  up  the 
chaff,  and   whatever  is  vile,  and  unworthy  to  be  pre- 
served— in   cleansing,   in   puriiymg  this    universe    and 
keeping  it  pure  (as  the  word  pur  imports),  we  cannot  say. 
But  the  conclusion  that  God  keeps  this  fire  perpetually 
burning,  not  for  the  purpose  of  consuming  what  is  worth- 
less and  vile,  but  for  the  very  purpose  of  tormenting 
those  whom  He  cannot  or  will  not  destroy,  and  that  they 
must  be  indestructible  because  this  is  the  nature  of  the 
fire  into  which  they  are  cast,  is  not  merely  a  slanderous 
imputation  on  the  character  of  God,  but  it  is  reached  by 
a  feat  of  argumentation  such  as  nothing  but  a  desperate 
cause  would  employ. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

Texts  and  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Support 
THE  Traditional  Dogma  (Continued). 

,    III. 

Mark  3 :  28,  29.  ^''All  si?is  shall  be  forgiven  unto 
the  sons  of  men  and  blasphemies  wherewith  soever  they 
shall  blaspheme — but  he  that  shall  blaspheme  against  the 
Holy  Ghost  hath  nemr  forgiveness^  but  is  in  danger  of 
eternal  datnnationP 

This  passage,  like  the  other  passages  that  are  the  prin- 
cipal reliance  of  those  who  would  maintain  the  doctrine 
of  eternal  sin  and  suffering — as  we  have  already  noticed 
and  shall  have  occasion  to  notice  again — has  evidently- 
been  tampered  with.  The  Greek  text  varies  in  different 
manuscripts.  Some  read  aloniou  kolasios,  "  eternal  pun- 
ishment," or  excision;  others  aioniou  kriseos  eternal 
condemnation,  or  judgment  or  damnation  as  in  our  com- 
mon version.  But  other  manuscripts,  which  are  supposed 
to  be  more  authoritative,  have  aioaiou  amartematos  eter- 
nal sin,  and  this  is  the  rendering  adopted  in  the  Revised 
Version. 

Those  who  hold  to  the  idea  of  a  future  probation,  and 
to  the  restoration  of  some  sinners  during  an  intermediate 
state,  think  they  find  some  hint  of  it  here,  and  in  a  few 
other  passages  of  like  import.  Be  that  as  it  may,  there 
is  nothing  to  encourage  the  idea  of  eternal  suffering  here. 
The  amended  rendering  is  not  "guilty,"  or  chargeable 
with  eternally  sinning — for  no  one  can  be  guilty  of  an 
252 


Chap.  XIV.]  TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  253 

act  which  is  eternally  future, — but  "  guilty  of  an  eternal 
sin  " — eternal  in  its  consequences,  one  that  is  never  to  be 
forgiven,  or  in  other  words,  of  a  "mortal  sin,"  which 
brings  certain  remediless  death.  There  is  another  pas- 
sage of  similar  import,  in  which  the  wrath  of  God  is 
said  to  abide  on  the  sinner,  which  perhaps  we  should  no- 
tice in  this  connection,  namely :  "  He  that  believeth  on 
the  Son  hath  Everlasting  Life,  and  he  that  believeth  not 
the  Son,  shall  not  see  life ;  but  the  wrath  of  God  abideth 
on  him"  (John  3  :  36).  The  wrath  of  God  may  be  said 
to  abide  on  men  as  long  as  they  continue  in  sin,  and  if 
they  were  to  continue  to  sin  forever,  then,  no  doubt.  His 
wrath  would  abide  on  them  forever.  But  this  is  just  the 
point  to  be  first  established,  before  any  such  doctrine  can 
be  founded  on  it.  There  is  no  such  assertion,  nor  any  im- 
plication to  this  effect  in  the  passage.  It  is  only  as  one 
assumes,  that  they  do  live  forever  in  sin,  and  reads  this 
idea  into  the  passage,  that  it  seems  to  have  any  bearing 
on  the  question. 

The  word  mend,  abide,  must  have  its  limitation  in  the 
object  spoken  of.  It  frequently  occurs  in  the  Scriptures. 
Mary  "  abode "  with  Elizabeth  three  months.  Christ 
"  abode  "  with  Zaccheus  over  night.  Erastus  "  abode  " 
at  Corinth, — how  long  we  are  not  told,  but  surely  not 
forever.  We  are  told,  however,  that,  "  He  that  doeth 
the  will  of  God  abideth  forever^''  menei  eis  ton  aidna. 
But  we  are  not  told  that  they  abide  forever,  who  do  not 
the  will  of  God,  nor  that  the  "  wrath  of  God  abideth 
on  them" — forever ;  but  on  the  contrary  that  He  is  to 
all  such  "  a  consuming  fire." 


254  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

IV. 

Mark  9 :  43-50.  "7/'  thy  right  hand  offend  thee^  cut  it 
off:  it  is  better  for  thee  to  go  into  life  maimed^  than  hav- 
ing two  hands  to  go  into  hell  {ten  geennan^  the  Gehenna)^ 
into  the  fire  that  never  shall  he  quenched  {to  pur  to  as- 
heston^  inextinguishable  fire).  [Where  the  worm  dieth 
not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched.]  And  if  thy  foot  of- 
fend thee,  cut  it  off';  it  is  better  for  thee  to  enter  halt  into 
life  than  having  two  feet  to  be  cast  into  hell  {  Gehenna)^ 
[into  the  fire  that  never  shall  be  quenched,  where  the 
worm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenched].  And  if 
thine  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out  /  it  is  better  for  thee  to 
enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God,  with  one  eye,  than  hav- 
ing two  eyes  to  be  cast  into  hell  (  Gehenna )  [fire]  where 
the  wo7'm  dieth  not  and  the  fire  is  not  quenchedP 

1.  Before  trying  to  ascertain  the  true  meaning  of 
this  passage,  it  would  be  desirable,  if  it  were  possible,  to 
get  hold  of  the  original  text.  But  this  is  probably  hope- 
less ;  for  like  all  the  other  passages  relating  to  the  doom 
of  the  wicked,  it  has  undergone  so  many  changes  at  the 
hands  of  partisan  transcribers  and  others,  and  this  work 
was  begun  so  early  that  it  is  not  possible  to  know  cer- 
tainly what  was  the  origmal  text.  But  the  best  scholars 
agree  in  rejecting  several  clauses, — those  that  we  have 
included  in  brackets, — as  spurious  interpolations,  and 
they  are  omitted  in  our  Revised  Version.  Perhaps  these 
additions  were  not  made  with  any  purpose  of  changing 
the  meaning  of  the  passage, — nor  do  they  essentially 
change  it, — but  with  the  pious  (?)  endeavor  to  make  it 
express  more  emphatically  and  impressively  the  senti- 
ment the  manipulators  had  in  their  own  minds.  In  fact, 
King  James'  translators  seem  to  have  joined  in  this 
pious  effort,  for,  in  translating  the  word  U*  pur  to  as- 
beston,  they  have  interpolated  a  little  prophecy  of  their 


Chap.  XIY.]  TEXTS   AKD   AEGUMENTS.  255 

own  into  the  text ;  and  instead  of  simply  rendering  it, 
"  the  unquenchable  fire,"  as  they  should  have  done,  as 
this  is  all  that  the  original  words  mean,  they  have  said 
"the  fire  that  never  shall  he  quenched,'''*  This  word 
asbestos  is  composed  of  two  parts,  the  a  privative,  and 
shestos  from  shennumi^  to  quench  or  extinguish.  This  a 
privative,  no  more  means  never  shall  be^  in  this  place, 
than  it  does  when  prefixed  to  any  other  Greek  word : 
for  instance,  oratos  means  visible,  and  aoratos  means  in- 
visible.  No  one  would  think  of  translating  it  never 
shall  be  visible. 

2.  The  word  here  rendered,  "hell,"  is  not  hades^hut 
Gehenna,  the  name  of  that  valley  outside  of  the  walls  of 
Jerusalem,  into  which  dead  carcasses  and  the  offal  of 
the  city  were  cast,  to  be  consumed  by  the  fires  that 
were  kept  constantly  burning  for  this  purpose,  and  by 
the  devouring  worms.  It  was  not  a  place  of  torture  for 
the  living,  but  a  place  for  the  consumption  of  whatever 
was  vile  and  offensive.  It  was  not  even  a  place  of  pun- 
ishment, excepting  so  far  as  this  ignominious  disposal  of 
the  bodies  that  were  cast  into  it,  as  not  worthy  of  a 
decent  burial,  might  be  regarded  as  a  punishment. 
Hence,  the  word  Gehenna  became  a  synonym  of  the 
most  ignominious  kind  of  destruction.  This  is  the  sense 
in  which  our  Lord  uses  it  elsewhere,  as  in  Matt.  5  :  22, 
"Whosoever  is  angry  with  his  brother,  without  a  cause, 
shall  be  in  danger  of  the  judgment  (condemnation  of 
the  judge,)  and  whosoever  shall  say  to  his  brother  Raca, 
shall  be  in  danger  of  the  council  (Sanhedrim),  but 
whosoever  shall  say  thou  fool^  shall  be  in  danger  of  hell 
fire  "  (the  Gehenna  of  fire).  lie  is  here  to  be  under- 
stood as  teacliing,  that  it  would  be  better  to  part  with 
whatever  is  the  most  dear  in  this  life,  than  to  be  led  by 
it,  to  the  loss  of  the  life  to  come  and  to  remediless  ruin. 


256  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

3.  The  phrase  "  where  the  worm  that  dieth  not,  and 
the  fire  is  not  quenched,"  is  evidently  a  quotation  from 
the  last  verse  in  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah ;  which  reads 
thus :  "  And  they  shall  go  forth  and  look  upon  the  car- 
.casses  of  the  men  that  have  transgressed  against  Me ; 
for  their  worm  shall  not  die^  neither  shall  their  fire  be 
quenched  and  they  shall  be  an  abhorring  unto  all  flesh." 
We  have  in  the  concluding  verses  of  this  prophecy,  a 
graphic  picture  of  the  restoration  of  the  kingdom  of 
Israel,  and  the  final  overthrow,  and  complete  and  utter 
destruction  of  all  their  enemies;  and  their  decaying 
bodies  are  represented  as  food  for  the  devouring  worms, 
and  the  consuming  fires  of  the  valley  of  Gehenna.  Our 
Lord  applies  tliis  description  to  the  case  of  the  miserable 
destruction  of  all  sinners.  But  those  who  would  insist 
on  using  this  reference,  not  as  a  symbol  of  the  sure  and 
fearful  destruction  of  the  wicked,  according  to  the  origi- 
nal meaning  of  these  words,  but  as  a  symbol  of  the  eter- 
nal preservation  of  the  wicked  in  torment,  find  these 
figures  too  gross  and  revolting  for  any  literal  application  ; 
and  so  they  spiritualize  them — by  whose  authority  no 
one  can  tell — ^by  saying  that  "  the  unquenchable  fire  " 
means  a  tormenting  conscience  that  can  never  be  quieted, 
and  "  the  worm  that  dieth  not,"  means  a  gnawing  mem- 
ory that  never  dies ;  and  this  conceit  has  been  handed 
down  from  one  religious  teacher  to  another,  and  been  so 
often  repeated,  that  it  is  regarded  by  many  as  the  real 
orthodox  teaching  of  the  Bible.  But  in  order  to  get  any 
support  from  this  text  for  the  doctrine  of  eternal  sin  and 
suffering,  the  advocates  of  this  doctrine  are  obliged,  not 
only  to  hold,  that  these  worms  are  immortal  worms,  but 
also  to  understand  this  word  die^  when  apj^lied  to  them, 
in  a  sense  just  opposite  and  contrary  to  that  when  ap- 
plied to  sinful  men.     In  the  first  case,  the  worms  that  are 


Chap.  XIV.]  TEXTS    AND   ARGUMENTS.'  257 

said  not  to  die^  are  taken  to  be  immortal,  and  in  the  sec- 
ond caseVvSinners  who  shall  die^  according  to  the  declara- 
tion of  the  same  Scriptures — they  too,  are  taken  to  be 
immortal !  This  is  the  kind  of  exegesis  to  which  they 
are  reduced  in  their  endeavor  to  sustain  the  doctrine  of 
eternal  sin  and  suffering !  And  this  they  claim  as  one 
of  their  strong  proof  texts. 

V. 

7%6  Parable  of  the  JRlch  Man  and  Lazarus, 

Luke  16:  19-31.  ^^  There  was  a  certain  rich  man,  which  was 
clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  fared  sumptuously  every  day: 
and  there  was  a  certain  beggar  named  Lazarus,  which  was  laid  at 
his  gate,  full  of  sores,  and  desiring  to  be  fed  with  the  crumbs  which 
fell  from  the  rich  man's  table;  moreover,  the  dogs  came  and  licked 
his  sores.  And  it  came  to  pass,  that  the  beggar  died,  and  was 
carried  by  the  angels  into  Abraham^ s  bosom.  The  rich  man  also 
died,  and  was  buried:  and  in  hell  (hades),  he  lifted  up  his  eyes, 
being  in  torments,  and  seeth  Abraham  afar  off,  and  Lazarus  in  his 
bosom.  And  he  cried,  and  said,  Father  Abraham,  have  mercy  on 
me,  and  send  Lazarus,  that  he  may  dip  the  tip  of  his  finger  in 
water,  and  cool  my  tongue:  for  lam  tormented  in  this  flame.  But 
Abraham  said.  Son,  remember  that  thou  in  thy  lifetime  receivedst 
thy  good  things,  and  likewise  Lazarus  evil  things :  but  now  he  is 
comforted,  and  thou  art  tormented.  And  besides  all  this,  between 
us  and  you  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed:  so  that  they  which  would 
pass  from  hence  to  you,  cannot;  neither  can  they  pass  to  us,  that 
would  come  from  thence.  Then  he  said,  I  pray  thee  therefore, 
father,  that  thou  wouldest  send  him  to  my  father^ s  house:  for  1 
have  five  brethren;  that  he  may  testify  unto  them,  lest  they  also 
come  into  this  place  of  torment.  Abraham  saith  unto  him,  They 
have  Moses  and  the  prophets;  let  them  hear  them.  And  he  said. 
Nay,  father  Abraham:  but  if  one  went  unto  them  from  the  dead, 
they  will  repent.  And  he  said  unto  him.  If  they  hear  not  Moses 
and  theprophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded,  though  one  rose 
from  the  dead." 

It  is  u23on  this  parable  more  than  on  any  other  portion 
of  Scripture,  that  our  opponents  rely  for  the  support  of 


258  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

their  doctrine  of  immortality  in  sin  and  misery.  It 
enters  into  all  their  arguments  on  this  question.  It  is 
thought  to  contain  the  materials  for  answering  all  objec- 
tions, and  silencing  all  cavils.  It  is  taken  for  granted, 
that  our  Lord  here  teaches,  and  intended  to  teach — that 
the  dead  are  conscious,  that  the  souls  of  all  men  are  im- 
mortal, and  that  on  leaving  this  world,  all  men  go  at 
once  into  a  state  of  blessedness  and  joy,  or  of  torment 
that  is  absolutely  unchangeable  and  eternal.  It  has  fur- 
nished the  materials,  by  the  help  of  a  lively  imagination 
and  fervid  rhetoric,  for  the  most  fearful  pictures  of  the 
never-ending  agonies  of  the  lost,  in  the  world  of  despair. 
It  has  been  employed  as  the  theme  of  more  terrific  dis- 
courses, and  exhortations  and  appeals  than,  perhaps,  any 
other  portion  of  Scripture.  And  yet  when  one  comes  to 
examine  it  soberly  and  carefully,  he  can  find  no  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  our  Lord  intended  to  teach  any- 
thing whatever  in  regard  to  the  state  of  the  dead.  He 
had  altogether  another  purpose,  as  we  shall  see. 

That  this  is  a  parable,  a  prophetic  parable  and  not  a 
biographical  sketch,  is  quite  evident.  It  must  then  be 
treated  as  a  parable,  and  be  understood  as  a  parable,  to 
illustrate  and  enforce  a  certain  truth.  Its  metaphors,  its 
scenic  representation,  its  personoe  are  to  be  taken,  not  as 
realities,  but  as  imaginary  things.  Much  less  can  one 
take  certain  portions  of  it — such  as  may  suit  his  conven- 
ience and  purpose — as  real,  and  reject  such  other  portions 
as  he  cannot  well  use,  as  unreal.  No  parable  can  be  ex- 
plained in  this  way ;  or  rather,  if  one  be  allowed  to  ac- 
commodate a  parable  to  his  purpose  in  this  way,  h^ 
ought,  by  ingenious  manipulation,  to  be  able  to  prove 
anything  he  may  please.* 

*  "  The  parables  may  not  be  made  first  sources  of  doctrine. 
Doctiines,  otherwise  and  already  grounded,  may  be  illustrated, 


Chap.  XIY.]  TEXTS    AND   ARGUMENTS.'^  259 

2.  The  scene  of  this  parable  is  altogether  an  ideal  or 
suppositional  one — and  was  meant  to  be  so.  It  is  sup- 
posed to  be  in  the  Hadean  world, — a  place,  or  state 
rather,  concerning  which  the  Scriptures  have  taught  us 
absolutely  nothing,  excepting  that  it  is  one  of  darkness 
and  silence  where  the  "dead  know  nothing"  into  which 
all  men,  both  good  and  bad  go  when  they  leave  this 
world.  If  the  scene  had  been  laid  in  Gehenna  that  place 
^of  fire  into  which  the  wicked  are  cast,  as  the  Scriptures 
inform  us,  after  the  resurrection  and  the  judgment,  to  be 
consumed,  this  parable  would  have  seemed  to  afford  some 
justification  for  the  doctrine  that  has  been  founded  upon 
it.  The  word  Gehenna  is  the  only  word  that  is  rendered 
Hell  in  our  revised  version;  the  word  Hades  is  trans- 
ferred to  the  text,  without  any  change.  If  the  authors 
of  our  old  version  had  done  the  same,  instead  of  un- 
fortunately translating  both  words  "  Hell,"  they  would 
have  saved  a  great  deal  of  confusion  of  mind,  and  false 
reasoning  from  the  parable,  and  in  regard  to  the  state  of 
the  dead  generally.  The  two  ideas  represented  by  these 
two  words.  Hades  and  Gehenna^  are  as  distinct  as  they 
can  well  be.  The  one  is  the  place,  or  state,  of  the  dead 
without  reference  to  their  character,  between  death  and 
the  resurrection  to  judgment.  The  other  is  the  place 
into  which  the  wicked  are  cast  after  judicial  sentence 
has  been  pronounced  upon  them,  to  be  destroyed  soul 
and  body  together.  The  Jews,  especially  the  Pharisees, 
to  whom  this  parable  was  spoken,  had  adopted  very  gen- 

or  indeed  further  confirmed  by  them,  but  it  is  not  allowable  to 
constitute  doctrines  first  by  their  aid.  .  .  .  This  rule,  how- 
ever, has  been  often  forgotten,  and  controversialists,  looking 
around  for  argument^,  with  which  to  sustain  some  weak  po- 
sition, one  from  whicii  they  can  find  no  other  support  in  Scrip- 
ture, often  invent  for  themselves  support  in  these."  Trench, 
on  the  Parables, 


260  ^  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

erally  the  fanciful  and  ghostly  notions  that  prevailed 
among  the  heathen  nations  by  which  they  were  sur- 
rounded.* And  our  Lord  constructed  this  parable  as  He 
did  His  other  parables,  to  suit  their  notions  of  things 
without  any  design  of  endorsing  or  opposing  them. 
When  He  uttered  the  parable  of  the  shrewd,  tricky 
steward  who  made  "  friends  of  the  mammon  of  unright- 
eousness," whom  his  lord — not  our  Lord — commended 
for  his  shrewdness,  that  He  might  give  a  lesson,  as  to  tha^ 
proper  use  of  money,  we  are  not  to  understand  Him  aa 
recommending  this  sort  of  sharp  practice  in  our  business 
dealings  with  each  other; — nor  by  the  parable  of  the 
"  unjust  judge,"  to  whom  He  likens  Himself  in  one  point, 
are  we  to  understand  Him  as  approving  of  the  character 
of  this  selfish,  hard-hearted  judge;  nor  by  the  parable  of 
the  "  Great  Supper  "  are  we  to  understand  Him  as  sanc- 
tioning the  practice  of  giving  great  suppers,  which  in 
His  day,  if  not  in  ours,  were  scenes  of  gluttony,  drunk- 
enness and  revelry.  Our  Lord  took  the  people  as  they 
were,  and  used  their  language,  and  adapted  His  illustra- 
tions to  their  modes  of  thinking  and  living.  They  had  a 
thousand  false  notions  which  He  did  not  attempt  to 
correct.  When  our  Lord  said  to  the  self-righteous  Phar- 
isees who  murmured  because  of  His  compassion  for 
sinners,  that  "there  is  more  joy  in  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth  than  over  ninety  and  nine  that 
need  no  repentance,"  we  are  not  to  understand  Him  as 
admitting  their  claim  to  His  favor,  or  as  affirming  that 
there  are  any  among  the  children  of  Adam  who  need  no 

♦  "  The  Egyptians,  Persians,  Hindus  and  Greeks,  with  all  of 
whom  the  Jews  held  relations  of  intercourse,  had  in  their  pop- 
ular representations  of  the  under-world  of  the  dead,  regions  of 
'<)eace  and  honor  for  the  good,  and  regions  of  fire  for  the  bad." 
W.  R.  Alger.  "Paradise  is  separated  from  hell  hy  a  distance 
no  greater  than  the  width  of  a  thread."    Eiseijmengexu 


Chap.  XIV.]  TEXTS    AND   ARGUMENTS.  261 

repentance ;  but  simply  as  addressing  them  on  the  basis 
of  their  own  assumptions.  It  is  not  to  the  drapery  of 
His  parables,  nor  to  the  elements  of  which  they  are  com- 
posed, nor  to  the  scene  where  they  are  laid,  but  to  the 
truth  He  would  illustrate,  that  we  are  to  direct  our 
attention. 

3.  There  is  nothing  in  the  circumstances  or  symbol- 
ism of  this  parable,  that  harmonizes  with  the  repre- 
sentations given  us  everywhere  else  in  the  Scriptures 
'concerning  the  Hadean  state,  or  the  rewards  and  punish- 
ments of  the  future  world.  So  far  as  its  pictorial  con- 
ception is  concerned,  it  stands  alone  and  is  quite  unique. 
Nothing  is  said  of  the  moral  character  of  the  two  prin- 
cipal persons  in  this  drama, — of  the  rich  man,  whom  tra- 
dition,— not  our  Lord, — calls  "  Dives,"  because  he  was 
rich,  and  of  Lazarus,  a  very  common  Hebrew  name, 
meaning,  without  help.  It  is  quite  common  to  hear  the 
former  spoken  of,  as  proud,  sensual,  miserly  and  every 
way  corrupt ;  and  the  latter,  as  humble,  patient,  prayer- 
ful and  pure  in  heart.  Indeed,  it  is  not  possible  to 
adapt  this  parable  to  the  purposes  of  those  who  would 
use  it  to  represent  the  future  misery  of  the  wicked,  and 
the  future  bliss  of  the  righteous,  unless  the  one  is  shown 
to  be,  or  assumed  to  be,  a  very  bad  man,  and  the  other  a 
very  good  man.  But  they  are  obliged  to  draw  entirely 
on  the  imagination  for  all  this.  They  have  done  this,  so 
uniformly  and  so  long,  that  such  representations  seem 
to  them,  no  doubt,  as  facts  and  part  of  the  parable  itself. 
Not  a  few  of  them  will  be  astounded,  if  not  offended, 
to  be  told  that  there  is  not  one  word  or  hint  in  what  our 
Lord  said, to  show  that  the  poor  man  was  one  whit  bet- 
ter than  the  rich  man.  He  is  represented  as  poor,  beg- 
garly, and  diseased,  and  all  this  might  have  been, — as  is 
usually  the  case, — on  account  of  his  vices ;  and  that  he 


262  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  IT. 

was  made  any  better  by  his  suffering,  there  is  no  qxi- 
dence  whatever.  The  other  is  represented  as  rich,  and 
supplied  with  everything  to  minister  to  his  earthly  hap- 
piness, and,  for  aught  that  appears  to  the  contrary,  as 
good  as  any  other  rich  man.  They  are  also  represented 
as  taking  their  bodies  with  them  into  Ilades,  and  as  re- 
taining full  possession  of  all  their  j^hysical  organs  and 
functions,  and  what  is  more,  the  rich  man  has  five 
brethen  still  living  upon  the  earth.  Of  course,  this  could 
not  be  after  this  woi'ld  had  passed  away  and  the  eternal 
state  had  commenced.  Still  further,  Lazarus  is  in  Abra- 
ham's bosom,  not  with  Christ  in  heaven,  where  the 
rigliteous  will  be  in  the  eternal  world.  Nor  does  it  ac- 
cord with  the  representations  of  Scripture,  that  the 
saved  and  the  lost  should  be  within  speaking  distance  of 
each  other.  In  short,  we  have  no  reasonable  ground  to 
suppose  that  our  Lord  intended  by  this  parable  to  teach 
anything  concerning  the  rewards  and  punishments  of  the 
future  state,  much  less  to  endorse  the  heathen  notions  of 
the  intermediate  state,  which  the  Pharisees  had  adopted, 
or  to  give  any  sanction  to  the  revolting  doctrine  of  Pur- 
gatory, which  the  papal  church  has  founded  on  this  one 
single  passage. 

4.  What  then,  did  He  mean  to  teach  by  this  Parable  ? 
This  should  be  very  evident  in  view  of  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  spoken,  and  the  persons  to  whom  it 
was  addressed  ;  and  doubtless  would  be,  were  it  not  for 
the  special  efforts  that  have  been  made  to  make  it  teach 
Bomething  else.  It  was  addressed  to  the  proud,  hypo- 
critical Pharisees,  who  claimed  to  be  the  children  of  the 
kingdom  through  their  father  Abraham,  and  heirs  of  the 
promise  in  preference — if  not  even  to  the  exclusion — of 
all  other  people.  Indeed,  they  looked  upon  the  people 
of  other  nations   with  contempt,  and  regarded  them  as 


Chap.XIY.]  TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  263 

hardly  worthy  to  eat  of  the  crumbs  that  fell  from  their 
well  supplied  table.  They  had  been  signally  favored 
of  heaven.  They  might  well  be  spoken  of  in  this 
respect,  as  rich  in  all  their  high  privileges,  and  clothed 
in  purple  and  fine  linen  and  faring  sumptuously  every 
day,  in  comparison  with  the  poor  Gentiles,  who  were  fam- 
ishing for  the  bread  of  life.  They  supposed  that  these 
rich  blessings  were  insured  to  them  as  the  special  favor- 
ites of  heaven,  and  that  this  distinction  between  them- 
selves and  others  would  always  exist.  Our  Lord  had 
been  uttering  parables  in  their  hearing  by  which  He 
rebuked  their  pride  and  self-conceit  and  hypocrisy.  He 
had  set  forth  in  strong  colors  the  Divine  displeasure 
toward  them,  for  their  abuse  of  their  high  privileges,  and 
had  showed  them  how  vain  were  their  hopes.  He  fore- 
warned them  of  their  rejection  in  favor  of  these  very 
people  whom  they  so  much  despised :  "  Then  shall  ye 
begin  to  say,  we  have  eaten  and  drunk  in  Thy  presence, 
and  Thou  hast  taught  in  our  streets.  But  He  shall  say,  I 
know  you  not  whence  ye  are  ;  depart  from  Me  all  ye  that 
work  iniquity.  There  shall  be  weeping  and  gnashing  of 
teeth,  when  ye  shall  see  Abraham  and  Isaac  and  Jacob 
and  all  the  prophets  in  the  kingdom  of  God  and  you 
yourselves  thrust  out.  And  they  shall  come  from  the 
East  and  from  the  West,  and  from  the  North  and  from 
the  South,  and  shall  sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God  ; 
and  behold,  there  are  last  which  shall  be  first,  and  there 
are  first  which  shall  be  last."  Having  spoken  to  them 
the  parable  of  the  presumptuous  guest,  who  had  taken 
the  highest  seat  at  the  feast,  and  was  humbled  by  being 
made  to  take  a  lower  place  ;  and  of  the  Wedding  Supper, 
and  of  the  rejection  of  the  guests  first  invited,  because 
of  their  frivolous  excuses,  and  of  the  invitation  then 
given  to  the  poor  and  the  maimed  and  the  halt  and  the 


264  THE  UNSPEAKABLE  GIFT.  [Part  TL 

blind  to  take  their  places ;  and  then,  of  the  lost  sheep, 
and  of  the  prodigal  son,  to  show  His  tender  regard 
toward  those  whom  they  regarded  as  unworthy  of  being 
recovered  to  Himself,  and  of  the  covetous,  dishonest 
steward — it  is  said  that  "  The  Pharisees  also,  wlio  were 
covetous,  heard  all  these  things  and  derided  Him"  (14th 
verse).  Then  follows  this  Parable  of  prophecy,  in  the 
same  line  and  with  the  same  general  purpose,  to  show 
them  how  completely  their  high  position  would  be  re- 
versed, in  favor  of  those  whom  they  now  so  much 
despised. 

No  prophecy  of  Scripture  has  been  more  exactly  ful- 
filled than  this.  They  have  died  as  a  nation,  and  lost  all 
their  high  privileges  and  possessions.  The  very  land 
which  they  once  possessed  has  been  taken  from  them. 
Tliey  have  no  country  on  earth  they  can  call  their  own. 
They  are  despised  and  deprived  of  their  rights  as  citi- 
zens in  other  countries.  They  have  been  persecuted  and 
oppressed,  as  no  other  people — not  even  the  Africans — 
have  been.  The  Gentiles,  on  the  other  hand,  have  taken 
possession  of  their  country,  and  have  entered  into  their 
high  privileges,  and  have  come  to  inherit,  very  largely, 
the  promises  made  to  the  children  of  Abraham.  They 
are  this  day,  as  it  were,  in  Abraham's  bosom,  and  in  tlie 
enjoyment  of  ten  thousand  temporal  and  spiritual  bless- 
ings. There  is,  as  it  were,  "  a  great  gulf  fixed  "  between 
the  Jews  and  the  Gentiles, — not  a  gulf  of  space,  for  they 
are  also  within  speaking  distance  of  them.  But  they  are 
distinctly  a  separate  people  in  whatever  part  of  the  world 
they  go  to  reside.  They  do  not  intermarry  or  inter- 
mingle with  them.  This  line  of  separation  has  been 
wonderfully  and  miraculously  preserved  for  these  eighteen 
hundred  years.  They  are  still  obstinate  in  their  unbe- 
lief.    Missionary  labors  have  been  less  successful  among 


Chap.  XIV.]  TEXTS    AND    ARGUMENTS.  265 

them  hitherto,  than  among  any  other  people.  Indeed,  it 
may  well  be  said,  "  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the 
Prophets,  neither  will  they  be  persuaded,  though  one 
rose  from  the  dead."  For  they  still  have  Moses  and  the 
prophets ;  and  what  is  more,  Jesus  Christ,  one  of  their 
own  nation,  and  of  whom  Moses  and  the  prophets  testi- 
fied, has  risen  from  the  dead  and  they  will  not  hear  Him. 

But  we  need  not  draw  out  the  parallel  into  other  spe- 
cifications, though  it  might  be  done.  No  one  should 
attempt  to  make  a  parable  "  go  on  all  fours,"  as  it  is  said, 
and  extort  special  meanings  from  its  details,  after  its 
general  scope  and  bearing  have  been  made  manifest,  as 
we  think  has  been  done  in  this  case.  The  parallel  be- 
tween the  history  of  this  Jewish  people,  and  the  picture 
drawn  of  it,  in  this  prophetic  parable,  seems  to  us  too 
complete  and  perfect  in  the  above  specifications,  to  admit 
of  any  other  interpretation. 

How  long  this  state  of  Jewish  wretchedness  and  sepa- 
ration is  to  continue,  the  parable  does  not  inform  us. 
That  it  is  an  eternal  one,  the  text  furnishes  us  no  evi- 
dence whatever  to  believe.  This  is  one  of  the  ideas  that 
has  been  imported  into  it,  by  the  spiritualistic  theology 
which  would  make  it  descriptive  of  the  eternal  separa- 
tion of  the  righteous  and  the  wicked  in  the  future  world. 
We  are  encouraged  to  believe,  from  numerous  other 
prophecies,  that  "  God  will  yet  have  mercy  on  Israel  "  ; 
and  that  when  "  the  fulness  of  the  Gentiles  "  shall  have 
come  in,  He  will  restore  them  to  favor  and  abundantly 
bless  them. 

■ 

^K  With  the  exception  of  one  phrase,  three  times  re- 
^Beated  in  the  Apocalypse,  which  will  claim  our  atten- 
^^■on  in  the  following  chapter,  we  know  of  no  others,  in 
^^Bie  whole  Bible  beside   these   we   have   already  exam- 

I      '\ 


266  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  IT. 

ined — which  have  been  thought  to  give  any  support  to 
the  doctrine  of  endless  torment — The  support  given  by 
those  already  examined  we  have  found  to  be  more  appar- 
ent than  real,  and  only  apparent  because  the  idea  has 
been  imported  into  them.  One  looks  in  vain  through  the 
book  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  through  all  their 
Epistles  for  the  expression  of  any  such  idea,  or  for  any 
passage  that  can  be  made  to  accommodate  the  idea  if 
read  into  it.  We  liave  their  discourses  and  letters  to  all 
classes  of  people.  They  are  filled  with  warnings  and  ex- 
hortations and  the  promises  of  the  Gospel.  They  de- 
scribe the  sad  and  perishing  condition  of  those  who  are 
destitute  of  the  Word  of  Life,  and  the  high  privileges  of 
those  to  whom  the  Saviour  has  been  revealed.  They 
speak  of  His  Second  Advent,  af  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Judgment,  of  the  everlasting  inheritance  of  the  Saints, 
and  of  the  utter  destruction  of  the  wicked ;  but  we  find 
not  one  word  or  lisp  of  what  is  called  "  the  immortal 
soul,  the  death  that  never  dies,"  or  of  endless  misery  in 
hell.  If  such  had  been  the  truths  they  were  commis- 
sioned to  preach,  they  must  have  been  sadly  recreant  to 
their  high  trust.  After  Paul's  utter  silence  in  regard  to 
a  doctrine  which  the  so-called  Christianity  of  after  ages 
has  considered  so  essential,  how  could  he  say,  "  I  take 
you  to  record  this  day  that  I  am  pure  from  the  blood  of 
all  men ;  for  I  have  not  shunned  to  declare  unto  you,  all 
the  counsel  of  God'''"^  No,  no,  this  doctrine  is  no  part  of 
the  counsel  of  God.  It  is  the  doctrine  of  the  great  ad- 
versary, who  was  a  liar  from  the  beginning,  and  who  has 
ever  sought  to  malign  the  character  of  God,  to  corrupt, 
misconstrue,  pervert  His  truth,  and  to  blind  the  minds  of 
men  "lest  the  light  of  the  glorious  Gospel  of  Christ, 
who  is  the  image  of  God,  should  shine  unto  them."  For 
in  no  way  could  He  more  effectually  accom^Dlish  His  pur- 


Chap.  XIV.]  TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  267 

pos^3,  in  promoting  skepticism  and  infidelity,  and  bring 
discredit  upon  the  Bible,  and  the  God  of  the  Bible,  than 
by  promulgating  this  monstrous  error,  and  then  charging 
it  upon  the  Scriptures,  and  causing  men  to  believe  it  is  a 
part  of  their  teaching.* 

*  *'  The  reason  why  infidels  and  skeptics  of  every  grade  have 
been  only  too  willing  to  admit  that  the  doctrine  of  man's  natu- 
ral immortality,  with  the  consequent  doctrine  of  endless  mis- 
ery, is  taught  in  the  Bible  is  obvious.  In  no  way  can  they  more 
effectually  bring  reproach  upon  the  character  of  its  author. 
Indeed,  this  is  one  of  their  strongest  arguments  against  it.  All 
the  more  plausible  arguments,  objections  and  reproaches  which 
such  blasphemers  as  IngersoU,  Bradlaugh,  and  others  of  less 
note,  bring  against  Christianity  and  the  God  of  Orthodox 
Christians,  are  based  on  the  supposition  that  the  Bible  sanc- 
tions all  the  horrid  cruelties  and  injustices  that  our  traditional 
theology  charges  upon  the  Deity.  Our  traditional  "  orthodoxy  '* 
is  mainly  responsible  for  supplying  them  with  these  weapons  of 
attack.  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  we  find  the  orthodox  uphold- 
ers of  this  doctrine,  quoting  the  admission  of  these  infidels  and 
skeptics  as  so  much  evidence  on  their  side.  Dr.  Bartlett,  in 
his  Life  and  Death  Eternal,  page  15,  quotes  this  saying  of  The- 
odore Parker:  '  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  taught  eternal  tor- 
ment,— I  do  not  accept  it  on  his  authority.'  And  again  in  the 
New  Englander,  Oct.,  1871,  he  refers  to  the  '  Parkei"S  and  the 
Paines '  as  so  much  evidence  on  his  side.  So  also  the  Congrega- 
iionalist,  of  Dec.  19,  1877,  quotes  this  same  utterance  of  Parker, 
and  similar  utterance  of  T.  Starr  King  and  Eraest  Kenan,  for 
the  same  puri)ose." 


CHAPTER  XV. 

Tbxts  and  Arguments  Commonly  Used  to  Support 
THE  Traditional  Dogma  (Continued). 

VI. 

Revelation  14 :  11.  ^^  And  the  smohe  of  their  tor- 
ment ascendeth  up  forever  and  ever  (eis  aionas  aionon,  to 
ages  of  ages )  and  they  have  no  rest  day  nor  night  who 
worship  (not  who  have  worshiped,  but  who  are  worship- 
ers of )  the  beast  and  his  image^  and  whosoever  receiveth 
the  inarh  of  his  nameP  19:  3.  '-'■And  again  they  said 
Alleluia;  and  her  smoke  rose  up  forever  and  ever'''*  (eis 
tous  aionas  t5n  aionon,  to  the  ages  of  the  ages). 

Rev.  20  :  9,  10.  "^mc?  they  (Gog  and  Magog  with  their 
hosts  led  on  by  Satan)  went  up  on  the  breadth  of  the 
earthy  and  compassed  the  cam})  of  the  saints  about,  and 
the  beloved,^  city;  and  fire  came  down  from  God  oiit  of 
heaven  and  devoured  them  (that  is  devoured  all  except- 
ing Satan).  And  the  devil  that  deceived  them  was  cast 
into  the  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone  where  the  beast  and 
the  false  prophet  are  (or  where  they  were  cast  one  thou- 
sand years  before,  as  we  are  told  in  chap.  19:  20)  and 
shall  be  tormented  day  and  night  forever  and  ever  "  (eis 
tous  aionas  ton  aionon,  to  the  ages  of  the  ages). 

The  Apocalypse  is  extraordinary  in  its  character, 
and  certainly,  the  most  difficult  part  of  the  Scriptures  to 
interpret  and  understand ;  but  we  see  no  good  reason  to 
question  its  canonicity,  as  some  have  done.  It  has  prob- 
ably been  subjected  to  more  comment  and  speculation 
268 


Chap.  Xy.J  TEXTS   AND   AEGUMENTS.  269 

than  any  other  book  in  the  Bible.  No  two  commentators 
have  agreed  in  their  explanation  and  application  of  its 
fanciful  figures,  its  phantasmagorical  images,  its  unnat- 
ural combinations  of  types  and  symbols  and  its  fervid  and 
extravagant  language.  We  certainly  do  not  profess  to 
be  wise  enough  to  tell  just  what,  and  how  much  is  meant 
by  all  that  is  shadowed  forth  in  this  prophetic  vision; 
nor  is  it  necessary  that  we  should  know,  in  order  to  show 
that  these  passages  cannot  possibly  have  the  application 
our  opponents  would  fain  give  them,  nor  be  made  the 
foundation  of  any  solid  argument  in  behalf  of  their  doc- 
trines ;  and  yet  there  are  no  passages,  upon  which  they 
place  more  reliance  or  which  they  more  often  quote  in 
support  of  it,  than  these  in  which  this  phrase  aionas 
aibnon  occurs.  It  would  be  difficult  for  them  to  draw 
out  even  a  plausible  argument  for  their  view  without 
them.  The  author  of  "  Life  and  Death  Eternal^'*  puts 
them  foremost,  and  last,  and  midway,  throughout  his 
book,  quoting  and  repeating  them  more  than  thirty  timeSy 
like  the  refrain  of  a  song,  as  though  by  their  frequent  re- 
petition, he  could  make  up  for  the  lack  of  other  passages 
to  supply  his  urgent  need  ;  and  yet  all  the  seeming  force 
they  have  is  quite  superficial,  and  comes  from  the  sound 
of  the  words  in  the  ears  of  those  who  have  already  as- 
sumed the  point  they  wish  to  prove,  and  from  the  false 
association  and  application  that  are  given  them. 

1.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  in  attempting  to  de- 
cipher the  meaning  of  any  part  of  this  book,  that  it  is 
quite  unique  in  its  character.  It  is  neither  sober  history, 
nor  sober  prophecy.  It  is  neither  didactic  prose,  nor 
poetry ;  nor  was  it  intended  to  be  so  taken  ;  but  rather 
as  a  vision — as  it  really  is — a  dramatic  representation  of 
what  John  saw,  while  in  a  trance,  in  the  isle  of  Patmos— - 
a  panoramic  view  of  the  leading  events  in  the  future  hi»- 


270  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

tory  of  the  world,  in  its  relations  to  the  kingdom  of 
Christ,  to  the  end  of  time,  or  rather  to  the  end  of  the 
age  or  cycle  through  which  it  is  now  passing  ;  and  espe- 
cially of  the  last  great  struggle  between  Christ  and  His 
enemies,  and  the  final  victory  He  gains  over  them.  We 
contend  that  its  kaleidoscopic  imagery  of  word  painting 
and  hieroglyphics,  is  not  to  be  taken  in  the  same  way,  as 
we  are  to  take  the  sober,  plain,  didactic  utterance  of  the 
Gospels  and  the  Epistles.  It  is  no  place  to  look  for  theo- 
logical dogmas,  or  for  texts  in  support  of  them.  We 
certainly  must  protest  against  the  practice,  so  common 
with  advocates  of  this  dogma  we  are  opposing,  of  taking 
its  images  partly  in  a  figurative,  and  partly  in  a  literal 
sense,  just  because  it  best  suits  their  purpose  to  do  so ; 
and  of  picking  out  heie  and  there,  from  the  midst  of  a 
dramatic  scene,  such  words  and  phrases  as  can  be  made 
to  fit  into  their  dogma,  and  calling  them  "  proof  texts," 
while  their  connection  is  quite  disregarded,  and  all  modi- 
fying circumstances  are  ignored. 

2.  All  the  argumentative  force  there  is  in  these  three 
passages,  lies  in  the  Greek  j^hrase  thrice  repeated,  aioiias 
aidnon,  rendered  in  our  common  Version  "forever  and 
ever,"  but  in  the  Revised  Version  with  the  alternative 
reading  "  ages  of  ages."  It  would  have  no  force  here,  if 
the  words  were  not  wrested  from  their  temporal  and 
mundane  application,  which  they  evidently  have  in  the 
connection  where  they  are  found,  and  predicated  of  the 
future  world,  to  which  they  have  no  reference. 

The  word  aid?!, — from  which  our  English  word  eon  or 
aeon  is  derived,  signifying  age,  a  life  time,  a  generation, 
a  cycle,  an  indefinite  period  of  time,  duration,  whether 
limited  or  unlimited,  and  therefore  sometimes  endless 
duration — with  its  inflections  and  in  various  combina- 
tions, occurs  nearly  one  hundred  times  in  the  New  Tes- 


Chap.  XV.]  TEXTS   AND   AEQUMENTS.  271 

tament,  and  is  variously  rendered  according  to  its  con- 
nection. Hence  it  is  translated,  "  ages,"  "  ages  to  come," 
"before  the  world  was,"  "  since  the  world  began,"  "from 
the  beginning  of  the  world,"  "  while  the  world  standeth," 
"  the  com'se  of  this  world,"  "  forever,"  "  forevermore," 
etc.  The  same  is  true  of  the  adjective  aidnios,  and  its 
Hebrew  analogue,  olam.  Though  they  are  more  com- 
monly rendered  "  everlasting,"  "  eternal,"  etc.,  their  ap- 
plication is  evidently  quite  as  often  to  temporal  and  tran- 
sitory affairs,  as  to  those  that  are  absolutely  endless  ;  and 
like  the  English  words  that  represent  them,  their  true 
signification  in  any  text,  must  be  determined,  not  by  the 
words  themselves,  but  by  the  objects  of  which  they  are 
predicated,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  case. 

When  this  phrase  is  predicated  of  things  naturally 
and  necessarily  temporal  and  temporary,  like  the  priest- 
hood of  Aaron,  the  service  of  the  temple,  an  earthly  in- 
heritance, the  leprosy  of  Gehazi,  the  life  servitude  of  the 
bondman,  as  it  is  in  the  Scriptures,  or  when  the  everlast- 
ing hills,  and  mountains,  and  doors,  and  chains,  and  fire, 
and  punishment  are  spoken  of,  it  is  evidently  limited  by 
the  nature  of  the  subject,  and  by  the  common  sense  of 
those  addressed,  and  there  is  no  need  of  misunderstand- 
ing its  application.  We  use  the  terms  everlasting,  for- 
ever, etc.,  in  the  transfer  of  property,  and  in  other  busi- 
ness transactions,  and  in  the  affairs  of  every  day  life  in 
the  same  limited  sense. 

When  this  phrase  is  predicated  of  that  which,  in  its 
own  nature,  is  incorruptible,  and  which  has  been  declared 
in  other  ways  and  by  other  forms  of  speech  to  be  abso- 
lutely endless,  like  the  life  of  God,  who  is  elsewhere  de- 
clared to  be  immortal,  or  that  of  His  people,  to  whom  He 
gives  His  own  life,  and  which  the  Scriptures  assure  us 
"shall  never  be  taken  away  from  them,"  we  have  no  oc- 


272  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

casion,  either  in  reason,  or  in  the  nature  of  things  to 
limit  the  phrase.  It  takes  all  the  force  of  which  it  is 
capable. 

But  when  the  term  is  applied  to  that  which  might  be 
supposed  to  be  endless  without  doing  violence  to  reason, 
or  to  that  concerning  which,  we  have  no  other  evidence 
but  such  as  we  find  in  the  term  itself,  all  we  can  do  is  to 
give  to  it  the  very  indefiniteness  which  is  its  peculiar 
characteristic. 

3.  Now  in  the  several  passages  under  consideration 
we  think  it  will  be  evident  to  every  unbiased  mind  that 
this  phrase  aionas  aiond?i  was  intended  to  be  taken  in  a 
sense,  more  or  less  restricted — and  indeed  must  be  so 
understood,  if  we  would  coiTCctly  interpret  them;  for 
(1.)  It  is  predicated,  not  of  individuals  as  such,  but  of 
impersonal  or  rather  of  personified  organizations  and 
associations  of  individuals.  Such  organizations  must  be 
punished,  if  punished  at  all,  during  their  continuance  in 
time,  for  they  cannot,  or  at  any  rate  the  Scriptures  teach 
us,  they  will  not  exist  as  such,  in  the  world  beyond. 
The  intelligent  reader  will  observe,  that  we  have  in  this 
book  a  vision  of  three  great  systems  of  evil  that  with- 
stand the  progress  of  the  Gospel.  They  are  described 
or  personified  as  (a)  3L/stical  Babifon^  otherwise  called 
the  Beast ^  the  great  Whore^  and  by  a  variety  of  other 
names.  This  is  generally  understood,  by  Protestants,  to 
represent  the  Papal  power.  (6)  The  False  Prophet^  by 
which  the  Mohammedan  power  is  supposed  to  be  meant, 
and  (c)  The  Dragon^  which  is  thought  to  stand  for  the 
Pagan  world  which  is  most  evidently  under  the  control 
of  Satan;  and  sometimes  this  title  is  employed  to  desig- 
nate the  Devil  individually,  or  rather  collectively,  with 
all  his  angels,  under  the  various  titles  of  Satan,  the 
Dragon,  the  Old  Serpent,  etc.     For,  as  in  a  kaleidoscope. 


Chap.  XY.]  TEXTS   AND    AEGUMENTS.  273 

the  figure  assumes  so  many  shapes  it  is  not  always  possi- 
ble to  identify  and  define  it  with  precision ;  nor  shall  we 
attempt  to  do  so.  These  three  opposing  forces  must  be 
subdued  and  destroyed,  before  the  Gospel  can  fully  trL 
umph  in  the  earth.  The  book  is  largely  occupied  with 
detailed  descriptions  of  these  powers  of  evil,  and  of  their 
conflicts  with  the  people  of  God,  and  with  Christ  their 
great  Captain.  In  the  passages  under  consideration,  we 
have  foretold  the  final  issue  of  these  conflicts  in  their  com- 
plete overthrow,  punishment  and  destruction.  It  is  true 
the  worshipers  of  the  Beast  are  spoken  of  as  individuals, 
in  some  of  these  descriptions,  as  indeed  they  must  be,  in 
order  to  an  understanding  of  what  is  meant  by  them. 
But  it  is  more  generally  in  their  collective  capacity,  and 
imder  one  personal  designation.  Even  when  they  are 
spoken  of  as  individuals,  it  will  be  noticed,  that  the 
phraseology  is  peculiar.  They  are  not  said  to  be  tor- 
mented for  having  worshiped  the  Beast,  but  while  wor- 
shiping  the  Beast.  They  have  no  rest  day  nor  night 
{proskunountes  to  therion)  worshiping  the  Beast,  or 
while  continuing  to  worship  him.  But  further  on  it  is 
said  (19  :  3)  :  "And  Her  smoke  rose  up  to  the  ages  of 
the  ages,"  i.  e.,  the  smoke  of  Babylon,  or  the  Beast,  or 
the  great  Whore,  this  great  conspicuous  organic  system 
of  evil.  That  it  is  the  smoke  of  her  utter  destruction,  aa 
well  as  of  her  torment,  we  are  assured  by  the  words  of 
the  angel,  who  "  took  up  a  stone  like  a  great  millstone 
and  cast  it  into  the  sea  saying :  '  Thus,  with  violence 
shall  that  great  city  Babylon  be  thrown  down  and  shali. 

BE    NO   MORE    FOUND    AT    ALL  ' "    (18;  21). 

(2.)  The  imagery  here  employed  seems  to  be  quoted 
from  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah,  where  the  destruction  of 
Idumea  is  set  forth  in  the  following  words :  "  And  the 
streams  thereof  shall  be  turned  into  pitch,  and  the  dust 

12* 


274  THE    UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

thereof,  into  brimstone,  and  the  land  thereof  shall  be- 
come burning  pitch ;  and  it  shall  not  be  quenched  night 
nor  day,  and  the  stnoke  thereof  shall  go  up  forever  : 
from  generation  to  generation  it  shall  lie  waste  and  none 
shall  pass  through  it  forever  and  ever  (Is.  34:  9,  10). 
The  language  here  is  as  strong  as  it  possibly  can  be, 
stronger  if  possible,  than  the  corresponding  phraseology, 
in  its  ai3plication  to  the  destruction  of  Babylon.  The 
Hebrew  words  are  lanetsach  netsachim,  "  perpetuity  of 
peri^etuities,"  and  yet  no  one  thinks  of  giving  it  any 
other  application,  but  that  which  is  limited  to  this  world. 
Indeed,  the  prophecy,  in  its  spirit  and  real  import,  has  long 
since  been  fulfilled,  and  the  fires  have  gone  out,  and  the 
smoke  has  ceased  to  ascend  in  any  literal  sense.  Nor  is 
there  any  good  reason  for  giving  to  the  highly  wrought 
prophetic  language  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  which  the  same 
figure  is  used,  any  other  application,  but  the  necessity  of 
finding  something  in  the  Scriptures  to  justify  this  doc- 
trine of  the  endless  torment  of  the  wicked  in  a  future 
state  of  being.     Dr.  Ives  well  remarks  on  this  passage  : 

"No  traveler  finds,  in  the  present  condition  of  An- 
cient Idumea,  the  literal  fulfilment  of  Isaiah's  poetic  pre- 
diction. Desolate  indeed  is  the  land  ;  totally  ruined  are 
the  cities  ;  but  they  are  not  now  sending  up  the  smoke  of 
their  burning.  And  yet  the  poet-seer  is  no  false  prophet. 
That  doom,  which,  in  the  highly  wrought  language  of 
poetry,  he  foretold,  has  overtaken  those  cities.  We  be- 
hold in  it  a  destruction  which  is  not  only  total,  but  ever 
continuing,  and  so,  fitly  symbolized  by  the  ever-ascending 
smoke  of  their  burning. "  * 

*  "  We  are  led  to  conclude  that  the  *  everlasting  fire '  is  not 
a  fire  of  everlasting  torment,  but  one  of  inevitable  destruction, 
and  this  accords  with  the  fact,  patent  on  the  face  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, that  every  passage  which  alludes  to  future  punishment, 
carries  with  it  in  some  form,  the  idea  of  destruction.  The  very 
alternative  of    the  Gospel  is    'perish'    or  *have   everlasting 


Chap.  XY.]  TEXTS   AND   ARGUMENTS.  275 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  destruction  of  "  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah  and  the  cities  about  them,"  of  which 
Jude  says  :  they  "  are  set  forth  for  an  example,  suffering 
the  vengeance  of  eternal  fire."  The  fire  made  quick 
work  with  them,  and  the  waters  of  the  Dead  Sea  now 
roll  over  the  plain  where  they  stood.  And  yet  the  ex- 
ample of  their  destruction  still  lives,  and  ever  will  live, 
in  the  memory  of  the  righteous  as  if  the  smoke  of  their 
burning  ascended  up  forever  and  ever. 

(3.)  That  this  phrase  is  to  be  taken  in  its  limited 
sense  in  these  three  passages,  is  further  evident  from  the 
fact,  that  it  is  predicated — not  of  transactions  in  the 
world  beyond,  but  of  those  that  have  their  course  and  f  uH 
consummation  in  time,  and  long  before  the  end  of  the 
world.  It  should  be  observed,  that  the  destruction  of 
the  Beast  and  the  False  Prophet  occurs  before  the  Sec- 
ond Advent,  and  the  Millennial  reign  of  Christ  with  His 
saints  on  the  earth ;  and  that  of  the  Dragon,  though  de- 
layed till  after  the  thousand  years  are  accomplished,  is 
anterior  to  the  general  resurrection  and  the  final  judg- 
ment, and  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  with  everlasting 
destruction,  "  which  is  the  second  death." 

life.'  One  passage,  indeed,  seems  to  be  an  exception  to  this 
uniform  teaching.  In  Kev.  14:  10, 11,  it  is  stated  that  a  certain 
class  of  sinners  shall  suffer  a  special  torment,  the  smoke  of 
which  ascendeth  up  unto  the  ages  of  the  ages.  Upon  this  pas- 
sage the  doctrine  of  an  endless  torment  in  hell  mainly  rests. 
But  not  to  speak  of  the  inconsistency  of  this  revolting  con- 
ception of  God  with  St.  John's  definition  of  Him  as  Love,  we 
submit  that  one  or  two  such  passages  in  the  most  obscure  book 
of  the  Bible  cannot  set  aside  the  multitude  of  plainer  passages 
which  represent  the  punishment  of  the  wicked  as  '  destruc- 
tion.' ...  In  a  parallel  passage  in  Isaiah  34,  we  read  that  the 
?moke  of  the  fiery  judgment  which  the  Lord  should  send  upon 
Idumea  '  shall  go  up  forever.'  And  yet  the  promise,  through 
the  same  prophet,  is  that  the  whole  earth  shall  be  renewed.^' 
Mystery  of  Creation,  p.  178.    L.  C.  Bakeb. 


276  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  us  hero  to  consider  minutely 
these  conflicts,  which  are  described  with  such  graphic 
detail  in  this  vision.  It  is  the  issue  only  that  now  con- 
cerns us.  The  Beast  and  the  False  Prophet  seem  to  be 
intimately  associated  in  their  opposition  to  "  the  Ever- 
lasting Gospel."  Their  origin,  their  life,  and  their  de- 
struction seem  to  be  coeval,  coteraporary  and  coterminous. 
Their  common  doom  is  thus  described  : 

"  Another  Beast  was  taken  and  with  him  the  False 
Prophet  that  wrought  miracles  before  him,  with  which 
he  deceived  them  that  had  received  the  mark  of  the 
Beast  and  them  that  worshiped  his  image.  These  both 
were  cast  alive  into  a  lake  burning  with  fire  and  brim- 
stone. And  the  Remnant  [notice  here,  the  distinction 
between  the  personified  systems  or  organizations,  and 
the  individuals  connected  with  them]  are  slain  with  the 
sword  of  Him  that  sat  upon  the  horse,  which  sword  pro- 
ceeded out  of  His  mouth,  and  all  the  fowls  were  filled 
with  their  flesh  "  (19 :  20,  21 ). 

But  there  yet  remains  another  obstacle  to  be  removed 
before  the  universal  reign  of  Christ  with  His  saints  on 
the  earth  can  begin:  "The  Dragon,  that  Old  Serpent, 
which  is  the  Devil  and  Satan  "  must  be  taken  out  of  the 
way.  But  the  time  for  his  utter  destruction  has  not  yet 
come.  He  is  only  to  be  bound  during  these  thousand 
years,  and  then,  in  like  manner  to  be  destroyed. 

"  And  I  [John]  saw  an  angel  come  down  from  heaven, 
having  the  key  of  the  bottomless  pit  {tes  abussou,  the 
abyss)  and  a  great  chain  in  his  hand,  and  he  laid  hold  on 
the  Dragon,  that  old  Serpent,  the  Devil  and  Satan,  and 
bound  him  a  thousand  years,  and  cast  him  into  the  bot- 
tomless pit  (the  abi/ss),  and  shut  him  up,  and  set  a  seal 
upon  him,  that  he  should  deceive  the  nations  no  more  till 
the  thousand  years  should  be  fulfilled ;  and  after  that  he 
must  be  loosed  a  little  season'*''  (20  :  1-3). 

Then  comes  the  First  Resurrection  {e  anastasis  eprote, 
whatever  may  be  understood  by  this  phrase),  which  is 


Chap.  XV.]  TEXTS   AND   AEGUMENTS.  277 

followed  by  the  happy  reign  of  Christ  with  the  martyred 
saints  during  the  long  millennial  age.  This  we  need  not 
now  stop  to  consider.  At  the  end  of  this  period,  Satan 
is  loosed  for  a  little  season.  There  is  a  general  outburst 
of  wickedness.  Gog  and  Magog,  under  his  leadership  are 
gathered  together,  in  numbers  as  the  sand  of  the  sea. 
They  compass  the  camp  of  the  saints  and  the  beloved 
city.  Fire  comes  down  from  God  out  of  heaven  and  de- 
vours them^  i.  e. — the  rank  and  file  of  these  armies ;  but 
their  diabolical  leader  is  reserved  for  a  more  fearful  de- 
struction. Like  the  Beast  and  the  False  Proi^het,  he  too 
is  now  taken  and  cast  into  the  same  lake  of  fire  and  brim- 
stone where  they  were  cast  a  thousand  years  before  to  be 
tormented  to  the  consummation  of  the  ages.  Although 
it  would  appear  from  the  language  of  Scripture,  that 
there  is  such  an  actual  personage  as  the  Devil,  alias  Satan, 
alias  that  Old  Serpent,  alias  the  Dragon,  we  are  not  to 
suppose  that  he  is  ubiquitous  as  an  individual.  These  ap- 
pellations are  more  often  used  as  a  general  term,  to  des- 
ignate the  associated  hosts  of  evil  that  are  actuated  by 
one  common  evil  purpose.  In  which  of  these  senses  we 
are  to  understand  this  description  of  his  destruction  in 
comj^any  with  the  Beast  and  the  False  Prophet,  may  be 
open  to  question.  In  view  of  the  symbolical  character  of 
the  whole  vision,  and  the  evidently  symbolical  char- 
acter of  the  other  two  personages,  there  would  be  a  mani- 
fest incongruity,  to  say  the  least,  in  giving  a  literal  inter- 
pretation to  the  third.  We  therefore  think  that  we 
should  understand  all  three  of  them  as  symbolical  per- 
sonages or  personifications.  But  we  are  not  anxious  to 
press  this  point,  any  further  than  to  insist  tliat  they  are 
not  human  beings^  whatever  else  they  may  be  taken  to 
be,  and  that  their  doom  cannot  he  understood  as  the  doom 
of  mortal  men.     Indeed  the  resurrection,  the  general 


278  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

judgment,  and  the  condemnation  of  the  wicked  of  the 
human  race  to  destruction  in  the  Second  death  are  after 
this,  still  in  the  future,  and  are  made  the  subject  of  the 
remaining  verses  of  this  chapter.  But  after  how  long  an 
interval,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing. 

It  is  possible,  yea  probable,  that  a  long  period, — how 
long  we  will  not  conjecture, — may  intervene  between  the 
events  now  described,  and  the  last  scene  in  this  earthly 
drama.  A  vision  of  only  the  tops  of  the  distant  moun- 
tains is  given  to  the  seer — while  the  peaceful  valleys  that 
lie  between  are  hidden  from  view.  Barnes  says  in  his 
notes  on  this  chapter  : 

"  IIow  long  the  interval  will  be  between  this  state — 
[the  state  of  peace  and  prosperity  after  the  destruction 
of  Satan,  as  described  in  the  tenth  verse]  and  the  next 
disclosed  (inverses  11-15) — the  final  judgment, — is  not 
stated.  The  eye  of  the  seer  glances  from  one  to  the 
other,  but  there  is  nothing  to  forbid  the  supposition,  that, 
according  to  the  laws  of  prophetic  vision,  there  may  be  a 
long  interval  in  which  the  righteous  shall  reign  upon  the 
earth." 

Professor  Stuart  expresses  the  same  view,  and  says  in 
reference  to  this  period : 

"  Peaceful  and  triumphant  will  be  her  latest  age.  The 
number  of  tlie  redeemed  will  be  augmented  beyond  all 
computation,  and  the  promise  made  from  the  beginning, 
that  '  the  seed  of  the  woman  should  bruise  the  serpent's 
head,'  will  be  fulfilled  in  all  its  extent  and  with  a  Divine 
plenitude  of  meaning." 

But  in  the  consummation  of  the  ages  of  the  ages,  the 
end  is  reached,  and  the  prophet  sees  the  last  closing  act 
in  this  earthly  drama.  The  Judge  appears  seated  on  His 
great  white  tlii*one.  The  heavens  and  the  earth  flee 
away  from  before  His  face,  and  there  is  no  place  left  for 
them.  The  books  are  opened,  the  dead  are  raised  and 
judged,  every  one  according  to  his  works ;  and  all  whose 


Chap.  XV.]  TEXTS   AND   AEGUMENTS.  279 

names  are  not  written  in  the  Booh  of  Life  are  cast  into 
the  lake  of  fire — then  last  of  all,  Death  and  Hades  are 
cast  into  the  same  lake  of  fire.  This  is  the  Second 
Death.* 

The  glorious  vision  of  the  new  heavens  and  the  new 
earth  that  now  follows,  will  be  considered  in  the  closing 
chapter.  It  would  seem  to  be  impossible  in  any  form  of 
words,  whether  in  literal  or  figurative  language,  to  de- 
scribe or  aflirm  more  positively  the  complete  and  final 
destruction  and  extermination  of  all  evil — of  all  systems 
of  evil,  and  of  all  evil  agencies  and  things,  than  is  fore- 
told in  this  book  of  Revelation.  Why,  not  merely  the 
Beast  and  the  False  Prophet  and  Satan,  alias  the  Devil, 
alias  the  Old  Serpent,  alias  the  Dragon,  and  all  his  ser- 
vants, and  all  his  works  are  destroyed,  but  death  itself, 
which  is  the  great  work  of  this  {anthrbpoktonos )  man- 
killer,  and  Hades,  the  very  prison-house  in  which  they 
have  been  confined — for  there  is  now  no  longer  any  use 
for  it — are  all  together  cast  into  this  burning  lake  to  be 
utterly  consumed,  and  this  old  earth,  which  has  been  the 
theater  of  the  fall  of  man,  and  of  his  redemption,  and  of 
the  long  struggle  between  good  and  evil,  and  of  the  vic- 
tory, too,  of  the  Son  of  God,  now  passes  away,  and  gives 

*"If  it  be  asked  what  the  lake  of  fire  does  represent,  we 
would  reply— the  partial  overcoming  of  evil  and  destruction  of 
evil-doers  at  the  beginning  of  the  millennium,  and  their  com- 
plete overthrow  at  the  close  of  it.  Fire  is  the  most  irresistible 
agent  of  destruction  that  we  can  know ;  and  it  is  used  here 
to  give  us  the  most  vivid  idea  that  could  be  presented  to  our 
minds,  of  the  complete  destruction  of  what  is  represented  by 
the  persons  and  things  cast  into  it.  The  Devil  probably  repre- 
sents all  the  evil  connected  with  the  unseen  world ;  the  Beast 
and  the  False  Prophet  the  most  conspicuous  typical  develop- 
ments of  human  wickedness;  death  and  Hades  the  physical 
evils  introduced  by  sin.  All  will  come  to  an  end;  every  trace 
of  sin  and  its  results  will  be  swept  away  forever."    S.  Minton. 


280  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

place  to  the  now  heavens  and  the  new  earth  in  which 
neither  sin,  nor  sorrow,  nor  death  shall  ever  be  known, 
"  for  the  former  things  have  passed  away."  This  is  the 
consummation  for  which  Peter  also  bids  us  look : 

"  Beloved,  be  not  ignorant  of  this  one  thing,  that  one 
day  is  with  the  Lord  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand 
years  as  one  day — But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  in 
which  the  heavens  shall  pass  away  with  a  great  noise, 
and  the  elements  shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,  and  the 
earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  therein  shall  be  burned 
up.  Nevertheless,  we,  according  to  His  promise,  look  for 
new  heavens  and  a  new  earth  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness."    (2  Pet.  3.) 

3.  We  need  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding  the 
general  truth  taught  by  this  book.  That  it  was  given  to 
comfort  and  encourage  the  hearts  of  the  people  of  God, 
through  the  many  trials  that  would  come  upon  them,  dur- 
ing this  long  struggle,  and  to  assure  them  of  the  glorious 
issue  of  all  these  conflicts  in  the  complete  triumph  of 
Christ  and  His  followers,  and  the  final  destruction  of  all 
evil,  is  quite  evident.  No  doubt  it  was  given  in  the  form 
best  adapted  to  all  the  purposes  for  which  it  was  intended. 
It  was  not  designed  to  be  a  didactic  or  doctrinal  treatise, 
like  the  Epistles,  nor  like  the  practical  discourses  of  our 
Lord.  It  was  not  intended  that  we  should  reduce  its 
language  to  logical  proportions,  nor  define  with  precision 
its  dramatic  imagery,  and  bring  all  the  details  of  this 
13anorama  into  place,  as  we  would  bring  the  events  of  a 
sober  history — certainly  not,  while  in  the  midst  of  the 
scenes  it  is  describing  to  us.  No  man  but  a  fool  is  wise 
enough  to  do  this.  Nor  will  any  sane  man — unless  he  has 
a  theory  to  support,  and  then  it  is  impossible  to  say  what 
he  will  not  do — think  of  analyzing  all  these  grotesque 
images,  and  criticising  their  anatomy,  the  garb  in  which 
they  are  clothed,  and  the  implements  they  use.     No  sober 


Chap.  XV.]     TEXTS  AND  ARGUMENTS.  281 

man  will  undertake  to  prove  from  the  language  here  em- 
ployed, that  our  Lord  actually  rides  on  a  white  horse, 
with  a  sharp  sword  in  His  mouth,  nor  that  an  angel 
actually  stands  in  the  sun,  and  throws  a  great  stone  into 
the  sea,  nor  that  there  is  somewhere  a  bottomless  pit, 
fitted  with  a  lock  and  key,  and  that  a  mighty  angel  will 
bring  the  key  in  one  hand,  with  which  to  open  the  door, 
and  a  chain  in  the  other,  with  which  to  bind  an  actual 
dragon,  that  he  may  cast  him  into  it  and  lock  him  up  for 
a  thousand  years,  nor  that  there  is  a  veritable  lake  of  fire 
and  brimstone,  where  myriads  of  millions  of  human 
beings  are  writhing  in  torture,  without  being  consumed, 
in  the  presence  of  the  Lamb  and  His  holy  angels  and  His 
redeemed  saints,  while  the  smoke  of  their  torment  wnll 
literally  roll  up  forever  and  ever — that  is  throughout  the 
unending  future  of  the  world  beyond.  And  yet,  strange 
to  say,  we  find  pious  and  otherwise  rational  men,  so 
blinded  by  this  heathenish  dogma,  and  so  pressed  for  ar- 
guments to  support  it,  eagerly  catching  up  such  figures 
and  phrases  of  this  vision  as  will  suit  their  purpose,  and 
parading  them  as  so  many  proof  texts  of  the  doctrine  of 
endless  sin  and  torment.  They  freely  allow  the  unreal 
character  of  so  many  of  these  images  and  phantasms,  as 
are  not  applicable  to  their  purpose  ;  but  they  hesitate  not 
to  pick  out  the  "  fire  "  and  the  "  brimstone,"  and  the 
"  smoke,"  and  the  "  torment,"  and  the  words  "  forever 
and  ever,"  which  they  insist  on  using  in  the  infinite  sense 
of  endlessness,  from  the  mass  of  other  symbols  and  ap- 
plying them  to — What?  not  to  the  personifications  of 
evil,  of  which  they  are  predicated,  but  to  living  men, 
women  and  children  like  themselves ! !  But  what  is  more 
astonishing — while  they  insist  that  all  other  texts  occur- 
ring in  the  didactic,  doctrinal  and  legal  parts  of  God's 
Word  that  speak  of  "  Life  Eternal,"  and  "  Death,"  and 


282  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

"  Destruction,"  and  "  Perdition,"  etc.,  should  be  taken  as 
metaphors  and  in  no  literal  sense ;  —  now  when  they  come 
to  that  portion  of  Ilis  Word  that  is  altogether  metaphori- 
cal, they  insist  on  giving  to  such  fragmentary  parts  of  it, 
as  will  suit  their  dogma,  a  strictly  literal  sense! !  And 
still  further,  they  are  not  content  with  giving  them  a  full 
and  literal  application  to  the  things  of  time  and  sense,  to 
which  they  belong — for  they  are  evidently  used  with  ref- 
erence to  events  transpiring  on  this  earth  previous  to  the 
consummation  of  the  ages, — but  they  must  wrest  them 
from  their  terrestrial  and  temporal  connection,  and  carry 
them  over  into  the  spiritual  world,  where  the  Scriptures 
tell  us  there  are  no  such  material  agencies,  no  succession 
of  day  and  night,  no  more  pain,  no  more  death,  in  order 
to  prove  that  there  is  pain  there,  and  death,  and  a  lake  of 
fire  and  brimstone  there,  and  that  mortal  men  are  writhing 
there,  and  will  writhe  in  unutterable  hopeless  agony,  hav- 
ing no  rest  day  nor  night,  while  the  smoke  of  their  tor- 
ments ascends  up  in  the  face  of  heaven  forever  and  ever ! 
We  verily  believe  that  a  more  grievous  perversion  of 
God's  Word,  a  more  complete  reversal  of  its  decided  tes- 
timony from  beginning  to  end,  could  not  well  be  per- 
petrated. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 
The  Exodus  of  Sin  and  Death. 

The  Divine  Revelation  is  dualistic  in  substance  as  well 
as  in  form.  By  means  of  two  so-called  Testaments — the 
Old  and  the  ISTew — we  have  revealed  to  us  two  worlds, 
two  Adams,  two  progenitors,  two  births,  two  covenants, 
two  classes  of  men,  two  kingdoms,  two  Divine  Advents, 
two  lives,  two  deaths. 

This  Revelation  makes  known  to  us  first  the  one,  and 
then  the  other  in  this  series  of  couplets,  that  we  may- 
compare  them,  and  see  how  much  superior  the  second  is 
to  the  first,  how  much  more  substantial  and  enduring. 

We  have  already  alluded,  more  than  once,  to  these 
contrasts,  in  the  foregoing  pages;  but  in  this  closing 
chapter,  we  must  bring  them  together  in  a  cluster,  that 
their  relation  to  each  other,  and  their  bearing  on  the 
question  under  discussion  may  be  more  clearly  seen. 
This  is  rendered  the  more  necessary  by  the  fact,  that  the 
traditional  doctrine  of  only  one  actual  life, — an  immortal 
life  for  all  men — ^has  made  void  some  of  these  distinc- 
tions so  sharply  drawn  in  the  Scriptures,  and  greatly 
obscured  all  the  others,  which  would  otherwise  be 
apparent. 

1.  Firsts  the  creation  of  this  lower  world  is  graphi- 
cally though  briefly  described.  All  is  very  good,  yea, 
perfect  according  to  its  nature ;  but  it  is  in  its  nature 
material ;  all  its  appointments  are  material,  and  under 
the  reign  of  natural  law,  and  therefore  mutable  and  tran- 
sitory.— Afterward^  is  revealed  to  us  a  brighter,  better, 


284  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

more  substantial  and  a  more  glorious  world  beyond,  as 
yet,  invisible,  spiritual  in  its  nature,  under  the  law  of 
holy  love,  and  fitted,  in  its  very  nature,  to  endure  for- 
ever. "  For  the  things  which  are  seen  are  temporal,  but 
the  things  which  are  not  seen  are  eternal."  The  exist- 
ence and  nature  of  this  world  to  come  are  but  gradually 
suggested  to  us ;  and  it  is  only  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  more  especially,  in  its  closing  chapters,  that  its  ex- 
cellency and  glory,  as  the  Second  Paradise,  of  which  the 
First  in  Eden  was  but  a  faint  type,  are  more  fully  and 
clearly  revealed. 

2.  Next  we  have  a  record  of  the  creation  of  the  First 
Man  "  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground " ;  the  noblest  of 
all  earthly  creatures,  and  yet,  essentially  earthly,  as  he 
proved  himself  to  be,  and  as  the  name,  "  adam,"  whioh 
was  given  to  him  by  his  Creator,  imports.  "  He  became 
a  living  soul,"  or  creature,  like  the  animals  beneath  him ; 
but  with  this  essential  difference :  There  was  given  to 
him  a  capacity  for  a  higlier  life — the  life  of  the  spiritual 
world  beyond,  and  he  was  intended  for  this  by  his  Crea- 
tor ;  but  only  by  being  established  in  holiness,  without 
which  he  could  neither  possess  nor  enjoy  it.  Failing  in 
this  essential  condition  through  sin,  he  proved  himself 
unworthy  of  the  boon,  and  sank  at  once,  to  the  condition 
of  an  earthly  and  perishable  creature.  "  That  was  not 
first  which  was  spiritual,  but  that  which  was  natural,  and 
afterward  that  which  was  spiritual,"  as  is  shown  in  the 
sequel. — Now  the  way  is  prepared  for  the  revelation  of  a 
Second  Adam ;  born  of  a  woman,  yet  begotten  by  God  ; 
the  Son  of  Man,  the  Son  of  God ;  both  Divine  and 
human ;  the  true  link  between  this  lower  world,  and  that 
world  of  light,  of  which  He  is  Lord  of  all ;  "  Tempted 
in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  yet  without  sin  " ;  dying  as  a 
mortal,  for  the  redemption  of  man,  though  possessed  of 


'iRn 


lap.  XYI.]    THE    EXODUS    OF    SIN   AND    DEATH.  285 

^n  inherent  immortality  in  His  own  right,  which  could 
not  be  lost,  and  so,  "  being  made  perfect  through  suffer- 
ing, He  becomes  the  Author  of  eternal  salvation  unto  all 
them  that  obey  Him  " ;  and  "  to  as  many  as  receive  Him, 
He  gives  power  to  become  the  Sons  of  God,  even  to 
them  that  believe  on  His  name." 

3.  The  First  Adam  is  the  progenitor  of  a  race  like 
self,  earthly,  carnal,  sinful  and  hiortal.     His  children 

could  not  inherit  from  him  an  immortality  which  he  failed 
to  secure  for  himself. — The  Second  Adam  is  the  progeni- 
tor of  a  race,  who  are  like  Him,  pure  in  heart,  and  spir- 
itual in  their  natures,  and  who  inherit  from  Him,  His 
own  immortal  life.  ThouMi  lins^erinoc  here  for  a  while, 
and  subject  to  physiciil  death,  they  shall  in  due  time, 
enter  upon  that  "  inheritance,  incorruptible  and  undefiled, 
and  that  fadeth  not  away,  reserved  in  heaven  for  them, 
who  are  kept  by  the  power  of  God  through  faith  unto 
salvation,  ready  to  be  revealed  in  the  last  time." 

4.  There  must  be  two  births  as  well  as  two  begettings. 
No  child  of  Adam  can  inherit  Eternal  Life,  except  he  be 
lx)rn  again — or  rather  from  above  {anothen).  "That 
which  is  born  (it  should  be  rendered  begotten,  from  gen- 
nao^  to  beget)  of  the  flesh  is  flesh,  and  that  which  is  born 
(begotten)  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit."  We  inherit  from 
Adam,  in  our  first  birth  nothing  but  a  natural,  mortal, 
transitory  life — the  life  of  the  psuche,  which  is  common 
to  all  earthly  creatures.  We  inherit  from  the  Second 
Adam,  in  our  second  birth  from  above,  a  supernatural, 
spiritual,  deathless  life, — a  life  ingenerated  within  us  by 
the  {Pneuma)  Spirit.  This  is  the  life  which  is  so  uni* 
foi-mly  and  repeatedly  spoken  of  by  our  Lord  as,  "  The 
Life  Everlasting  "  {e  zbe  aidnios) — a  life  which  is  di- 
rectly from  Him,  and  which  only  can  "  make  us  meet  to 
be  partakers  of  the  inheritance  of  the  saints  in  light." 


286  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

5  This  dispensation  of  grace  brings  us  under  a  new 
covenant.  The  First  covenant  was  a  covenant  of  works. 
"  Do  this  and  thou  shalt  live."  It  was  entirely  legal. 
Its  rewards  and  penalties,  its  motives,  though  pure,  were 
earthly,  and  appealed  to  man's  psucJiical  nature.  *'  It 
could  never  make  the  comers  thereto  perfect " — that 
is  complete.  "  For  if  the  first  had  been  faultless,  then 
should  no  place  have  been  found  for  the  second." — But 
the  second  covenant  is  a  covenant  of  faith,  "  Believe  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved."  It  requires  an  implicit  trust  in  an 
Almighty  Saviour — one  "who  is  made  not  after  the  law 
of  a  carnal  commandment,  but  after  the  power  of  an 
endless  life."  Its  appeals  are  to  that  higher  nature,  now 
begotten  within  the  new  man  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Its  motives,  its  rewards  are  spiritual,  heavenly,  eternal. 

6.  And  so  mankind  come  to  be  divided  into  two 
classes,  and  only  two ;  "  sinners  "  and  "  saints,"  though 
designated  by  a  great  variety  of  other  names  in  the 
Scriptures,  as  we  have  shown  in  a  previous  chapter. 

The  first  class  are  carnally  minded;  live  after  the 
flesh;  are  controlled  by  worldly  motives;  seek  for 
worldly  gain,  and  have  all  their  good  things,  which  perish 
with  their  use  in  this  life ;  and  when  this  world  is  de- 
stroyed, they  must  perish  with  it,  and  with  their  treas- 
ures, for  they  have  no  inheritance  beyond. — The  second 
class  are  spiritually  minded;  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of 
God;  through  the  Spirit  do  mortify  the  deeds  of  the 
flesh ;  are  controlled  by  spiritual  influences ;  seek  those 
things  that  are  above,  that  are  pure,  substantial  and 
eternal.  Their  choice  is  the  good  part  that  shall  never 
be  taken  away.     They  and  they  only  have  eternal  life. 

7.  Hence  there  are  two  kingdoms;  the  one  of  this 
world,  over  which  the  great  enemy  of  God  and  man  bears 
rule,  as  prince  of  this  world,  a  kingdom  of  evil,  of  dis- 


Chap.  XYI.]    THE   EXODUS   OF   SIN  AND   DEATH.  287 

order,  of  sorrow,  of  darkness  and  of  death ;  a  kingdom 
that  is  doomed  to  be  overthrown  and  utterly  and  forever 

destroyed. The  other  is    the    kingdom  of    God,    of 

heaven,  of  our  Lord ;  a  kingdom  of  light  and  glory  and 
power  ;  a  kingdom  of  righteousness  and  peace  and  joy  in 
the  Holy  Ghost,  which,  established  by  the  Son  of  God, 
as  His  Everlasting  Kingdom,  shall  endure  forever. 

8.  To  lay  the  foundations  of  this  kingdom,  the  Son 
of  God  came  in  the  flesh,  as  the  Son  of  Man,  to  live 
under  the  law,  to  suffer  and  die ;  and  then,  victorious 
over  the  power  of  death.  He  rose  and  ascended  on  high, 
"  leading  captivity  captive,  and  giving  gifts  to  men." — 
We  have  the  assurance  that  He  will  come  again  in  due 
time,  to  gather  in  the  fruits  of  His  victory,  to  raise  the 
dead,  to  judge  the  world,  and  then,  to  destroy  it,  or  all 
that  is  destructible  and  vile  in  it,  and  to  make  all  things 

-  new.  "And  unto  them  that  look  for  Him,  shall  He  appear 
the  second  time  without  sin  (or  apart  from  sin)  unto  sal- 
vation." And  in  that  new  heavens  and  new  earth 
wherein  dwelleth  righteousness,  He  shall  reign  over  His 
ransomed  people  forever.  To  achieve  this  is  the  work 
of  two  Advents  or  epiphanies  or  comings  ;  the  First  and 
the  Second  which  are  the  theme  of  many  of  the  Proph- 
ecies and  Ej)istles. 

9.  Finally — not  to  extend  this  category  into  other 
points  that  are  less  clearly  revealed — ^we  ask  especial  at- 
tention to  the  First  and  Second  Death,  to  which  such 
prominence  is  given  in  the  Word  of  God. 

b^r  There  is  no  vagueness  in  the  teaching  of  Scripture 
I^Kth  respect  to  these  two  deaths ;  and  there  ought  to  be 
I^K  misunderstanding  of  its  doctrine  nor  would  there  be, 
i^^ere  it  not  for  the  philosophy  that  denies  the  actuality  of 

even  the  first  death,  because  man  is  assumed  to  be  an 
^  immortal  being  /  of  course,  there  is  no  place  for  a  second 

death. 


288  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

This  fundamental  error  throws  a  cloud  of  confusion 
over  the  whole  system  of  Divine  Revelation.  The  radi- 
cal distinction  between  the  natural  and  the  supernatural, 
between  that  which  is  physical,  earthly  and  transitory, 
and  that  which  is  spiritual,  heavenly  and  eternal,  which 
is  so  sharply  drawn  in  the  Scriptures  is  quite  ignored. 
By  a  scheme  of  mystical,  scholastic  interpretation  of  the 
pivotal  words  of  Scripture,  and  of  its  doctrines,  the 
whole  is  brought  under  a  system  of  naturalism ;  the 
higher  is  made  to  follow  that  which  is  lower,  step  by 
step,  under  a  self-contained  principle  of  natural  develop- 
ment. Man,  if  indeed  he  had  any  definite  beginning, 
had  no  such  beginning  as  Moses  tells  of,  or  rather  as 
somebody  tells  us  in  the  book  of  Genesis.  He  has  been 
rising  or  developing  through  a  long  succession  of  ages 
from  one  stage  to  another,  and  still  has  Jbefore  him  a 
career  of  progress,  that  is  absolutely  interminable.  Ac- 
cording to  this  philosophy  there  cannot  be  any  such 
thing  under  the  Divine  government,  as  the  penalty  of 
actual  death.  Death,  instead  of  being  a  penal  infliction, 
is  the  door  by  which  the  righteous  enter  upon  that  higher 
state  of  existence  for  which  they  have  been  maturing 
here  below.  For  the  wicked  also — it  is  the  door  by 
which  they  enter  upon  a  state  of  eternal  sin  and  misery. 
And  then,  as  to  the  Second  death,  which,  according  to 
the  Word  of  God,  follows  upon  the  Resurrection  and  the 
Judgment  to  condemnation,  it  means — why  it  means — a 
— just  nothing  at  all,  only  more  sin  and  misery.  These 
theological  teachers  have  had  a  world  of  trouble  in  defin- 
ing the  Fu'st  death,  so  as  to  save  their  dogma,  ani  not  to 
seem  to  contradict  the  Scriptures ;  but  they  are  com- 
pletely bafiied  in  their  attempts  to  explain  the  meaning  of 
the  "  Second  death."  This  will  be  evident  to  any  one 
who  will  take  the  trouble  to  examine  any  of  their  com 


Chap.  XVI.]    THE   EXODUS   OF   SIN   AND   DEATH.  289 

mentaries  on  this  point.  Barnes  makes  the  fears,  the 
pains,  the  agonies  that  attend  upon  natural  death,  to  il- 
lustrate the  fears  and  pains  and  agonies  of  the  sinner  in 
the  Second  death.  All  this,  no  doubt,  is  very  true.  But 
he  forgets  that,  in  the  first  case,  they  all  find  their  end 
in  death  itself,  while  in  the  other,  he  supposes  them  to 
continue  forever.  In  this  way  he  overlooks  the  main 
point  in  the  comparison,  and  takes  the  circumstances  at- 
tending the  two  events  for  the  events  themselves.  For 
whatever  be  the  accompaniments  of  this  death — and 
they  must  indeed  be  fearful,  in  the  case  of  those  who 
have  persisted  all  their  lives  in  the  rejection  of  an  offered 
salvation — it  is  of  the  death  itself,  the  final  end  of  the 
sinner's  career,  of  which  the  Scriptures  so  emphatically 
speak,  and  to  which  we  would  invite  especial  attention. 
"  Sin,"  whatever  miseries  may  attend  its  course,  "  when 
it  is  Finished  bringeth  forth  Death."  ^ 

Of  course  if  there  be  no  actual  death  in  the  first  in- 
stance, there  can  be  no  actual  resurrection  from  the  dead. 
All  those  awe  inspiring  descriptions  which  we  find  in  the 
Word  of  God,  of  the  second  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man, 

*  Since  writing  the  above  paragraph  I  have  listened  to  an  im- 
pressive sermon  from  an  orthodox  minister,  on  the  text,  "  He 
that  converteth  a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his  way  shall  save  a 
soul  from  death,"  etc.    He  gave  a  formal  definition  of  Death 
thus:  ^^  Death  U  scToerance  from  God.'^     Severance  from  God  will 
surely  result  in  death.     But  it  is  not  death  itself.     It  is  no  more 
I      death  than  abstinence  from  food  is  death,  or  the  severance  of 
l^a  bnuich  from  the  vine  is  death.     Why  should  our  religious 
l^fcachers  constantly  put  the  cause  for  the  effect,  when  speaking 
I^Hf  the  death  of  the  sinner?    It  is  that  they  may  substitute 
I^Hiother  effect  in  the  place  of  death — and  so  permit  the  sinner 
ppl^>  live  after  he  is  dead. — Ask  them  what  severance  from  God 
is,  and  they  will  not  say  "death,"  but  "a  state  of  sin  and 
misery."     What  then,  is  the  second  deat] 
ance  from  God,  or  more  sin  and  misery  1 1 
13 


290  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

in  great  power  and  glory,  with  all  His  holy  angels,  when 
the  graves  are  to  be  opened,  and  the  dead  are  to  come 
forth  from  their  graves,  and  all  men,  both  small  and 
great  are  to  stand  before  His  judgment  throne,  are  to  be 
taken  as  Oriental  hyperboles,  and  as  really  meaning  noth- 
ing more  than  the  gentle  emergence  of  the  spirit  from  the 
body  where  it  has  been  imprisoned,  like  the  balloon  when 
the  tie  is  cut  that  holds  it  to  the  earth,  and  it  rises  to  its 
proper  place  in  the  sphere  above.  Indeed,  as  for  all  who 
have  gone  before  us,  we  are  to  believe,  according  to  the 
teaching  of  Hymeneus  and  Philetus,  "  who  erred  con- 
cerning the  faith,"  as  Paul  tells  us,  "  and  overthrew  the 
faith  of  some,"  "  that  the  resurrection  is  past  already,"  so 
far  as  that  kind  of  rising  can  be  called  a  resurrection.* 
So  also,  there  is  to  be  no  actual  personal  second  com- 

*'*  While  the  reformers  rooted  out  the  medijeval  doctrine  of 
Purgatory,  they  failed  to  substitute  a  better  theory  of  the 
middle  state,  and  left  it  for  our  days  to  reconsider  this  whole 
question  and  to  reach  positive  results.  The  Protestant  creeds 
almost  wholly  i.^nore  the  middle  state,  aud  pass  from  death 
immediately  to  the  final  state  after  the  general  judgment,  and 
the  old  Protestant  theologians  nearly  identify  the  pre-resurrec- 
tion  state  of  the  righteous  and  wicked  with  their  post-resur- 
rection state,  except  that  the  former  is  a  diftt^mhodied  state  of 
perfect  bliss  or  perfect  misery.  By  this  confusion  the  Resur- 
rection and  the  general  .Judgment  are  reduced  to  an  empty 
formality."     Am.  Pr<s.  Beview,  Oct  1883.    Dr.  Schaff. 

"  Any  careful  reader  of  the  New  Testament  and  of  the 
sermons  and  letters  of  the  apostles  must  see  at  once  that  no- 
where does  our  modern  preaching  differ  from  theirs  so  widely 
as  at  this  vital  point.  To  them  this  was  the  grand  fruit  of  the 
Redeemer's  toil,  the  sublime  hope  of  the  Church,  the  great  de- 
liverance of  the  human  race,  for  which  even  the  whole  creation 
was  in  travail.  There  is  not  a  recorded  sermon  or  Epistle  of 
the  apostles  which  does  not  at  least  allude  to  it,  and  in  most  of 
them  it  flames  out  into  a  great  light,  which  from  their  high 


Chap.  Xyi.]  ^HE  EXODUS   OF   SIN  AND   DEATH.  291 

ing  of  our  victorious  Lord  to  take  the  government  of  a 
ransomed  world,  and  to  rule  in  righteousness  over  his 
loyal,  holy  people.  The  language  of  Scripture,  in  which 
this  is  so  clearly  and  positively  foretold,  is  to  be  taken  in 
a  metaphorical  sense,  to  indicate  a  kind  of  invisible,  im- 
personal parousia^  long  since  passed;  and  that  great 
event,  for  which  the  early  Christians  waited  and  prayed 
with  longing  desire,  and  for  which,  so  many  of  His  people 
are  still  praying  and  waiting  and  watching  with  joyful 
expectancy  "  and  so  much  the  more  as  they  see  the  day 
approaching,"  is  all  a  delusive  dream  !  Indeed,  there  is 
to  be  no  such  complete  victory ;  no  such  universal  king- 
dom as  we  have  been  taught  to  pray  for,  but  only  a  par- 
tial victory,  in  which  the  great  Adversary  of  God  and 
Man  shall  be  permitted  to  retain  possession  of  all  the  cap- 
tives he  has  hitherto  taken,  and  all  he  shall  yet  take  to 
the  end  of  the  world,  and  then,  one  province,  at  least,  is 
to  be  given  over  to  their  eternal  occupancy,  and  there 
are  to  be  two  Everlasting  Kingdoms,  a  kingdom  of  light 
and  a  kingdom  of  darkness ;  a  kingdom  of  holiness  and 
a  kingdom  of  sin ;  a  kingdom  of  joy  and  blessedness ; 
and  a  kingdom  of  wailing  and  woe,  running  parallel  with 
each  other  to  all  eternity.  In  short,  all  the  great  doc- 
trines of  our  holy  religion  must  be  explained  away,  or 
modified  or  spiritualized  to  accommodate  this  ruling 
dogma.     It  has  so  enthroned   itself  in  the  so-called  "  or- 

tower  of  hope,  they  fling  out  into  the  world's  darkness.  We 
hear,  indeed,  the  fact  of  a  risen  Christ  now  and  then  feebly 
preached,  but  how  seldom  a  sermon,  such  as  Paul  preached 
before  Felix,  which  covers  the  wide  field  of  this  grand  "  hope 
toward  God."  And  all  that  splendid  truth  concerning  things 
to  come,  of  which  this  hope  is  the  center,  many  Christians  are 
as  ignorant  about  as  babes.  Even  good  people  pronounce  such 
themes  unprofitable."  The  Eschatology  of  the  Future.  L.  C. 
Bakeb. 


292  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

thodox  "  system,  that  like  the  sun  and  moon  and  eleven 
stars,  in  the  dream  of  Joseph,  they  revolve  around  it  and 
do  obeisance  to  it. 

But  we  cannot  pursue  this  line  of  thought  further. 
We  have  done  what  we  could  in  the  foregoing  pages, 
within  such  restricted  limits,  to  set  forth  the  evil  origin, 
the  disastrous  influence,  and  the  anti-scriptural  character 
of  this  dogma,  and  to  reset  in  their  proper  places  in  the 
evangelical  system,  some  of  the  more  important  doctrines 
it  has  displaced,  perverted  and  obscured,  with  the  earnest 
hope  that  our  labor  may  not  prove  to  be  in  vain.  And 
now,  as  a  proper  sequel  to  our  chapter  on  the  "  Genesis 
of  Sin  and  Death,"  we  must  ask  the  reader's  attention  in 
the  closing  pages  of  this  last  chapter  to  what,  in  the 
terms  of  Scripture  we  may  call  the  Exodus  of  Sin  and 
Death. 

We  are  so  accustomed  to  the  mixture  of  good  and  evil 
in  this  imperfect  state,  that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  con- 
ceive of  the  one  without  the  other.  Holiness  and  sin, 
joy  and  sorrow,  life  and  death,  light  from  above  and 
darkness  from  beneath,  mingle  together  in  this  midway 
sphere.  Everything  that  is  true  and  bright  and  lovely 
has  its  counterpart,  in  that  which  is  false  and  dark  and 
hateful.  It  has  always  been  so  in  our  experience,  and  we 
naturally  come  to  feel  that  it  must  always  continue  to  be 
BO.  Or,  if  these  extremes  do  not  meet  and  mingle  in  the 
same  scene  or  person,  they  must  somehow  be  perpetuated 
as  cotemporary  with  each  other,  and  necessary  to  a  com- 
plete universe.  It  seems  unnatural,  from  our  past  expe- 
rience and  training,  to  think  of  a  heaven  without  a  hell 
somewhere  to  balance  it ;  of  the  King  of  glory  with  His 
holy  angels,  without  thinking  of  the  Devil  and  his 
angels  also ;  of  the  ransomed  of  the  Lord,  rejoicing  for- 


Chap.  XVI.]   THE   EXODUS   OP   SIN  AND  DEATH.  293 

ever  in  the  kingdom  of  light  and  life,  without  thinking 
also  of  the  lost,  suffering  and  wailing  forever  in  a  king- 
dom of  darkness  and  death.  The  idea  that  the  time 
ever  will  come,  or  can  come,  or  ought  to  come,  when 
there  shall  be  no  sin  anywhere,  no  sorrow,  no  darkness, 
no  death,  no  devil,  no  hell,  but  one  complete  rounded 
universe  of  holy,  happy  creatures,  centering  in  God,  and 
revolving  round  Him  as  the  Source  of  their  life  and  all 
their  blessedness,  seems  so  strange  and  extravagant  to 
those  who  have  been  trained  to  regard  sin  and  suffering 
as  an  integral  part  of  the  universe,  that  they  are  afraid 
to  indulge  it.  They  look  with  suspicion  upon  any  one 
who  ventures  to  express  the  hope  of  such  a  consumma- 
tion, as  though  he  were  giving  up  an  essential  part  of  the 
orthodox  faith.  To  most  Christians,  evil  seems  to  be  aa 
permanent  a  part  of  the  universe  as  good ;  the  eternal 
existence  of  Satan  the  desti'oyer,  as  certain  and  logically 
necessary,  as  that  of  Christ  the  Saviour. 

Theologians  have  undertaken  to  show  that  this  perpet- 
ual antagonism  or  antithesis  is  necessary  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  or,  at  any  rate,  the  continued  existence 
of  sin,  with  its  consequent  suffering,  is  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  holy  obedience  and  blessedness  of 
God's  loyal  subjects.*     Zoroaster  and  his  followers  held 

*  "  The  smoke  of  their  torment  shall  ascend  up  in  the  sight 
of  the  blessed  forever  and  ever  and  serve  as  a  most  clear  glass 
always  before  their  eyes  to  give  them  a  constant,  bright  and 
most  affecting  view.  .  .  .  This  display  of  the  Divine  character 
and  glory  will  be  in  favor  of  the  redeemed,  and  most  entertain- 
ing, and  give  the  highest  pleasure  to  those  who  love  God,  and 
raise  their  happiness  to  ineffable  heights." 

''Should  this  eternal  punishment  cease  and  this  fire  be  extin- 
guished, it  would  in  a  great  measure,  obscure  the  light  of 
heaven  and  put  an  end  to  a  great  part  of  the  happiness  and 
glory  of  the  blessed."    Hopkins'  Works,  Vol.  11. ,  pp.  457, 458, 


294  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

that  there  are  two  eternal  principles ;  the  one  good,  and 
the  other  evil ;  both  without  beginning,  and  both  with- 
out end,  eternally  in  conflict  with  each  other ;  the  one 
they  called  "  Ormuzd  "  and  the  other  "  Ahriman." 

But  these  Christian  theologians,  less  consistent  than 
they,  hold  that,  while  there  are  now  two  such  principles 
at  war  with  each  other,  only  the  good  had  no  beginning 
and  is  eternal  in  the  past ;  eml  is  an  interloper ;  and  dates 
its  origin  in  time ;  but  now  that  it  has  begun  to  be,  it 
must  forever  remain,  to  mar  the  beauty  of  this  once  per- 
fect system.  God  Himself  cannot,  or  does  not  choose  to 
eradicate  it  or  put  an  end  to  its  existence. 

But,  in  opposition  to  these  heathen  and  sophisticated 
Christian  teachers  we  hold  to  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of 
the  eternity  of  the  good,  both  a  parte  ante  and  a  parte 
post,  and  the  transitory  nature  of  evil.  Evil  is  but  an  Epi- 
sode in  the  unfolding  of  God's  perfect  plan.  As  it  had  a 
beginning  in  time,  so  it  shall  have  an  end  in  time.  How- 
ever necessary  it  might  have  been  to  this  incipient,  pre- 
paratory stage  of  our  existence ;  however  useful  as  a  foil 
or  background  to  the  picture  yet  to  be,  or  as  a  means  for 
the  display  of  the  riches  of  God's  grace ;  however  neces- 
sary night  may  be  to  the  introduction  of  the  day,  or  the 
knowledge  of  evil  to  the  more  perfect  knowledge  of  good, 
or  the  experience  of  death  to  the  enjoyment  of  life  eter- 
nal, or  of  sin,  to  "  the  bringing  in  of  everlasting  right- 
eousness "  ;  it  is  but  incidental  and  temporary  after  all, 
and  not  integral  and  perpetual ;  and  the  tune  will  come, 
when,  having  fully  served  its  jDurpose,  whatever  that  2:)ur- 
pose  may  be,  it  will  come  to  an  end. 

"  What  is  the  chaff  to  the  wheat,"  that  it  should  be 
garnered  and  preserved  forever?  Why  should  the  stag- 
ing, used  in  the  erection  of  a  building,  be  suffered  to  re- 
main forever,  after  the  edifice  is  finished,  to  disfigure  its 


Chap.  XVI.]    THE   EXODUS   OF    SIN   AND   DEATH.  295 

beauty  ?  Of  what  value  are  the  chips  and  debris  but  to 
be  destroyed  ?  Why  should  the  fogs  and  mists  that  usher 
in  the  coming  day,  remain  forever  to  obscure  the  light  of 
the  risen  sun  ?  Why  should  the  Almighty  be  beholden 
to  the  devil  to  aid  Him  in  sustaining  and  perpetuating 
His  righteous  government  over  His  holy  and  blessed 
subjects? 

We  believe  that  the  devil  and  all  his  works  will  be  ut- 
terly  destroyed ;    that  "  death  shall  be   abolished,  and 
swallowed  up  of  life";  that  all  evil  shall  give  place  to 
good,  and  that  the  time  will  come,  when  "  soitow  and 
sighing  "  shall  be  unknown,  "  and  there  shall  be  no  more 
pain  "  ;  that  the  victory,  which  the  Son  of  God  shall  gain 
over  all  His  enemies,  and  the  enemies  of  His  people,  will 
be  complete,  wanting  nothing.    "  For  it  pleased  the  Father 
that  in  Him  should  all  fulness  dwell,   and  having  made 
peace  through  the  blood  of  His  cross,  through  Him  to 
reconcile  all  things  unto  Himself,  whether  they  be  things 
in  earth,  or  things  in  heaven  " ;  "  He  shall  gather  together 
in  one   all  things  in  Christ,  and  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
every  knee  shall  bow,  of  things  in  heaven  and  things  in 
earth  and  things  under  the  earth,  and  every  tongue  shall 
confess,  that  He  is  Lord  to  the  glory  of  God  the  Father." 
To  us,  this  glorious  consummation  seems  essential  to  the 
idea  of  a  perfect  Deity ;  One  who  is  perfect  in  goodness 
to  desire,  perfect  in  wisdom  to  plan,  perfect  in  power  to 
execute  all  His  purposes  of  supreme  benevolence.     But 
we  believe  it  mainly  because  this  is  just  what  His  Word 
tells  us  ;  we  believe  it  in  spite  of  Manichaean  or  Grecian 
philosophy ;  we  believe  it  in  spite  of  theologic  scholasti- 
cism and  traditionalism.     "  Let  God  be  true — but  every 
man  a  liar." 

The  difference  between  us  and  these  teachers  consists 
really  in  the  different  ideas  we  entertain  of  the  power 


296  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

and  perfection  of  our  Leader.  Our  arguments  have 
been  directed  sometimes  to  one  subordinate  point,  and 
sometimes  to  another,  but,  in  fact,  the  question  in  dis- 
pute is,  "What  think  ye  of  Christ ? "—What  of  His 
desires  ?  What  of  His  purposes  ?  What  of  His  promises  ? 
What  of  His  power  to  execute  them?  Is  there  any  limit 
to  His  goodness,  power  and  truth  ?  or  any  such  limit,  as 
to  hinder  Him  from  destroying  the  devil  and  all  his 
hosts,  as  He  has  threatened  to  do — from  desiring  to  put 
an  end  to  all  sin,  and  succeeding  in  His  efforts  "  to  make 
all  things  new,"  as  He  has  abundantly  promised  ? 

They  believe  that  the  natural  life, — that  which  was 
given  to  man  in  his  creation, — was  an  immortal  life,  and 
subject  to  no  conditions  for  its  endless  perpetuity. — We, 
on  the  contrary,  believe  it  was  made  conditional  in  the 
very  outset,  and  liable  to  be  forfeited  by  sin,  and  that 
man  had  no  guarantee  of  its  continuance,  only  as  he 
should  show  himself  worthy  of  immortality  and  be  fitted 
to  enjoy  it. 

They  believe  that  "  all  mankind,  by  their  fall,  lost  com- 
munion with  God,  are  under  His  wrath  and  curse,  and  so 
made  liable  to  all  the  miseries  of  this  life,  to  death  itself, 
and  to  the  pains  of  hell  forever,"  and  all  this  as  their 
natural  inheritance,  by  birth  from  Adam. — We  believe 
the  consequence  of  the  fall  to  be,  "  cursed  is  the  ground 
for  thy  sake ;  in  sorrow  shalt  thou  eat  of  it  all  the  days 
of  thy  life.  Thorns  and  thistles  shall  it  bring  forth  unto 
thee.  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread  till 
thou  return  to  the  ground.  For  out  of  it  wast  thou 
taken ;  for  dust  thou  art,  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou 
return." 

They  believe,  that  God  will  punish  the  unsaved  chil- 
dren of  Adam  in  another  life,  as  well  as  in  this,  and  eter- 
nally punish  them,  as  well  for  the  sin  of  their  progenitor 


Chap.  XVI.]    THE   EXODUS   OP   SIN   AND   DEATH.  297 

as  for  their  own  sins. — ^We  believe  that  He  will  punish 
no  one  hereafter,  but  for  his  own  sins. 

They  believe,  that  future  punishment  "  will  consist  in 
intensity  of  sneering,"  and  that  this  suffering  will  never 
cease. — We  believe  that  this  punishment  will  consist  in 
such  suffering  only,  as  each  individual  sinner  shall  de* 
serve — no  more  and  no  less — and  that  beyond  the  second 
death  there  is  to  be  neither  sin  nor  suffering. 

They  believe,  that  the  great  end  which  Christ  pro- 
posed, in  the  struggle  in  which  He  is  now  engaged  with 
Satan  in  this  world, — the  very  object  for  which  He  came 
down  from  heaven  and  died, — was  to  get  back  what  He 
could  of  the  territory  that  had  been  lost,  and  to  recover 
a  certain  portion  of  the  human  race  from  the  power  of 
the  adversary,  and  to  make  them  pure  and  blessed  for- 
ever in  heaven,  and,  as  for  the  rest,  to  get  them  with 
their  diabolical  leader  safely  under  lock  and  key,  where 
He  can  torment  them  unceasingly  and  forever ;  and  that 
in  the  accomplishment  of  all  this,  "  Me  will  see  of  the 
travail  of  His  soul  and  be  satisfied.''^  We  believe  that 
He  had  an  end  infinitely  higher  and  more  glorious  in 
view,  in  His  advent  to  earth.  He  came  to  die  with  man, 
and  for  man,  the  just  for  the  unjust,  that  He  might  re- 
deem him  from  death,  impart  to  him  His  own  pure  im- 
mortal life  by  a  new  birth,  raise  him  from  the  dead 
immortalized,  and  made  meet  for  an  inheritance  in  His 
everlasting  kingdom.  And  that  He  will  accomplish  all 
this  for  all  who  will  accept  Him  as  their  Saviour,  and 
submit  themselves  to  His  heavenly  discipline.  As  for 
tliose  who  "judge  themselves  unworthy  of  Eternal  Life," 
their  forfeited,  miserable  lives  will  not  be,  cannot  be  per- 
petuated forever  anywhere ;  their  names  "  will  be  blotted 
out  of  the  Book  of  Life."  They  will  utterly  perish  in 
the  Second  death.  "  He  shall  send  forth  His  angels,  and 
13* 


298  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  II. 

they  shall  gather  out  of  His  kingdom,  all  things  that 
offend,  and  them  which  do  iniquity,  and  shall  cast  them 
into  a  furnace  of  fire,"  and  they  shall  be  consumed  like 
the  chaff  from  the  threshing  floor,  and  there  shall  be 
thenceforth,  "  one  fold  and  one  shepherd." 

It  is  not  according  to  the  Divine  method  to  reveal  spir- 
itual truth  in  logical  propositions,  nor  to  reveal  it  all  at 
once ;  but  only  so  far  and  so  fast  as  man  can  receive  and 
use  it.  To  the  most  enlightened  of  the  Old  Testament 
Saints,  many  of  the  facts  and  principles  of  the  Gospel, 
that  are  now  clear  to  the  child,  were  revealed  only  in  dim 
and  shadowy  outlines.  To  those  wlio  were  under  His 
more  immediate  teaching,  the  Master  said,  "  I  have  many 
things  to  say  unto  you,  but  you  cannot  bear  them  now." 
We  must  not  expect,  even  under  the  clearer  light  of 
"  these  last  days,"  to  be  able  fully  to  understand  and  de- 
scribe that  which  is  peculiar  to  the  dispensation  yet  to 
come, — the  dispensation  of  immortality,  in  a  spiritual 
state — or  to  be  able  to  fix  the  precise  and  definite  mean- 
ing of  all  the  many  allusions  to  it  in  the  Scriptures.  The 
inspired  writers  themselves  did  not  fully  comprehend  the 
full  import  of  the  language  they  used ;  and  surely  it  is 
not  the  intention  of  the  Spirit  that  inspired  them,  to  give 
to  us — even  were  it  possible  for  us  to  comprehend  it— 
a  literal,  definite  and  accurate  account  of  the  spiritual 
and  eternal  world  that  lies  before  us.  All  we  can  hope 
for  now  is  to  be  assured — as  we  may  be — of  its  actual  ex- 
istence, to  know  what  are  our  present  and  practical  rela- 
tions to  it,  and  to  get  such  glimpses  of  its  excellence  and 
glory,  as  shall  stimulate  us  to  wise  endeavors,  and  cheer 
our  hearts,  and  strengthen  our  faith  in  that  Adorable 
Leader  who  has  undertaken  to  bring  us  thither.  All  this 
we  have  in  the  Word  of  God.  It  gives  us  every  assur- 
ance we  need,  of  His  wisdom,  goodness  and  power,  and 


Chap.  XVI.]    THE   EXODUS   OF    SIN   AND   DEATH.  299 

of  the  complete  victory  He  will  gain  over  all  His  foes 
and  our  foes,  and  of  the  glorious  consummation,  that  will 
finally  crown  His  self-sacrificing  work  of  love. 

The  celestial  Paradise,  with  its  spiritual  beauties  and 
glories,  and  "  filled  with  the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth 
all  in  all,"  so  graphically  described  in  the  closing  chapters 
of  the  Apocalypse,  was  foreshadowed,  and  as  we  believe, 
meant  to  be  typified  by  the  terrestial  Paradise,  described 
in  the  second  chapter  of  Genesis,  with  its  earthly  beauties 
and  pleasures,  where  everything,  according  to  its  material 
nature  was  "  very  good." 

The  enigmatical  address  of  God  to  the  Serpent  that 
had  seduced  our  first  parents  from  their  allegiance  to 
their  Maker,  we  understand  to  be  prophetical  of  the  issue 
he  had  challenged ;  "  I  will  put  enmity  between  thee  and 
the  woman,  and  between  thy  seed  and  her  seed,  and  it 
shall  bruise — (or  rather  crush) — thy  head^  and  thou  shall 
bruise  his  heel.''''  His  career  of  apparent  success  for  a 
time,  would  be  followed  by  a  crushing  overthrow  and  ex- 
termination. The  wounded  heel  may  be  made  whole,  but 
the  head  is  the  citadel  of  life.  If  that  be  crushed,  death 
must  sooner  or  later  ensue.  It  is  a  popular  saying,  that 
a  serpent  will  retain  a  sort  of  vitality  till  the  sun  goes 
down,  even  if  his  head  be  crushed,  but  the  morning  of 
the  next  day,  will  find  him  quite  dead. 

The  many  promises  that  God  made  to  Abraham,  Isaac 
and  Jacob  concerning  their  posterity,  and  the  extermina- 
tion of  all  their  enemies,  and  especially  the  solemn  oath  He 
made  to  Moses  :  "  As  truly  as  I  live,  all  the  earth  shall  be 
filled  with  the  glory  of  the  Lord,"  are  to  be  taken  in  no 
partial,  restricted,  temporal  sense,  but  as  giving  the  as- 
surance, that  not  merely  the  surface  of  the  earth  shall  be 
cleansed  and  become  the  habitation  of  a  holy  people,  but 
that  it  shall  be  cleansed  in  every  part,  and  that  there  shall 


300  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIET.  [Part  11. 

be  no  dark  hadean  depths,  within  its  bowels,  into  which 
the  miserable  victims  of  His  wrath  shall  be  thrust  to  sin 
and  suffer  forever. 

The  book  of  Psalms  is  full  of  promises,  more  or  less 
explicit  of  the  coming  glory  under  the  reign  of  Christ. 
We  understand  them  as  predicting,  not  simply  a  millen- 
nial period  that  shall  endure  only  for  a  time — but  as  prom- 
isinoj  the  establishment  of  "akini]jdom  that  shall  never 
end."  "  His  name  shall  endure  forever."  All  nations 
shall  call  Him  blessed.  "Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of 
Israel,  who  only  doeth  wondrous  things ;  and  blessed 
be  His  glorious  name  forever.  Let  the  lohole  earth  be 
filled  with  His  glory.  Amen ;  and  Amen." 

The  prophets  describe,  in  the  most  glowing  terms,  the 
completeness  of  the  victory  over  all  evil,  and  the  fulness 
of  the  glory  of  His  everlasting  kingdom.  There  shall  be 
nothing  to  hurt  or  destroy  throughout  all  the  lengtli  and 
breadth  of  it.  "  The  ransomed  of  the  Lord  shall  return 
and  come  to  Zion  with  songs ;  and  everlasting  joy  shall 
be  on  their  heads ;  and  they  shall  obtain  joy  and  glad- 
ness, and  sorrow  and  sighing  shall  flee  away."  "  The 
mountains  and  the  hills  shall  break  forth  before  you  into 
singing,  and  all  the  trees  shall  clap  their  hands."  "  In- 
stead of  the  thorn  shall  come  up  the  fir  tree ;  instead  of 
the  brier,  shall  come  up  the  myrtle  tree,  and  it  shall  be 
to  the  Lord  for  a  name  and  for  an  everlasting  sign,  that 
shall  not  be  cut  off."  "  In  the  days  of  these  kings  shall  the 
God  of  heaven  set  up  a  kingdom  which  shall  never  be 
destroyed ;  and  the  kingdom  shall  not  be  left  to  other 
people,  but  it  shall  break  in  pieces  and  consume  all  these 
kingdoms,  and  it  shall  stand  forever." 

The  Old  Testament  closes  with  a  description  of  the 
gathering  in  of  God's  people  as  jewels  into  His  kingdom, 
and  the  utter  destruction  of  all  the  wicked.     When  He 


Chap.  XVI.]  THE  EXODUS  or  sm  and  death.  301 

cleanses  His  threshing  floor,  it  will  not  be  to  gather  the 
good  wheat  into  one  garner,  and  the  chaff  and  the  tares 
and  the  worthless  rubbish  into  another — into  some  dark 
corner — ^there  to  be  left  to  rot,  and  to  give  forth  its  pes- 
tilential stench  forever;  nor  will  He  cast  it  into  a  fire 
that  shall  smoulder  and  fume  and  smoke,  but  refuse  to 
consume  it.  But  "the  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  as  an 
oven;  and  all  the  proud,  yea,  and  all  that  do  wickedly, 
shall  be  as  stubble,  and  the  day  that  cometh  shall  hum 
them  up^  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  that  it  shall  leave  them 
neither  root  nor  branch.''''  God  forbid  that  we  should 
hold  to  any  philosophy  that  will  not  permit  us  to  believe 
in  so  glorious  a  consummation. 

More  especially  in  the  New  Testament,  the  main  object 
of  Christ's  coming  is  declared  to  be,  "  that  through  deaths 
He  might  destroy — not  imprison  and  torment  forever, 
but  destroy — him  that  had  the  power  of  death,  that  is 
the  devil. "  Heb.  2  :  14.  "  For  this  purpose  the  Son  of 
God  was  manifested,  that  He  might  destroy  the  works  of 
the  devil."  What  are  the  works  of  the  devil,  but  sin 
and  sorrow  and  death  ?  Indeed,  Satan  is  now  destroyed 
in  every  other  sense,  but  that  of  his  personality.  What 
further  destruction  remains  for  him  or  can  he  have,  but 
the  destruction  of  his  being  ?  The  demons  themselves 
were  conscious  of  their  impending  fate,  and  cried  out, 
when  they  saw  Jesus,  "  What  have  we  to  do  with  thee, 
Jesus,  thou  Son  of  God ;  art  thou  come  hither  to  torment 
— to  bring  us  to  trial  and  punishment — before  the  time  ?  " 
Matt.  8 :  29.  And  again,  changing  the  words,  but  not 
the  thought,  "  Art  thou  come  to  destroy  us  ?  "  Luke  4  : 
3L  Peter  and  Jude  both  assure  us,  that  they  are  even 
now  kept  in  everlasting  chains — or  chains  from  which 
they  cannot  escape — under  darkness  unto  the  judgment 
of  tlie  great  day — that  day  in  which  they  shall  be  judged 
and  destroyed. 


302  THE   UNSPEAKABLE   GIFT.  [Part  II. 

This  was  the  burden  of  the  preaching  of  John  Baptist, 
as  he  went  forth  saying :  "  Repent  ye  for  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  at  hand, — and  now  the  axe  it  laid  at  the  root 
of  the  trees,  therefore  every  tree  which  bringeth  not 
forth  good  fruit  is  hewn  down,  and  cast  into  the  fire, — 
whose  fan  is  in  His  hand,  and  He  will  thoroughly  purge 
His  floor,  and  gather  the  wheat  into  the  garner ;  but  He 
will  burn  up  the  chaff,  with  unquenchable  fire."  This  is 
what  our  Lord  Himself  taught  in  the  sermon  on  the 
Mount,  and  by  many  of  His  parables ;  such  as  "  The 
Tares  and  the  Wheat  " ;  "  The  Drag  Net "  ;  "  The  Tal- 
ents "  "  The  Foolish  Virgins  "  ;  and  in  the  scenic  repre- 
sentation of  the  *' judgment  of  the  nations,  when  He 
welcomes  into  His  everlasting  kingdom  only  those  who 
are  fit  for  Eternal  Life,  and  consigns  the  wicked  to  ever- 
lasting punishment,  which  we  are  elsewhere  told,  is  the 
punishment  of  "  everlasting  destruction,"  when  the  Lord 
shall  be  revealed  from  heaven  with  His  mighty  angels,  in 
flaming  fire,  taking  vengeance  on  them  that  know  not 
God,  and  obey  not  tlie  Gospel  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Nowhere  in  all  the  Epistles  is  there  any  hint,  that  the 
conflict  now  going  on  between  Christ  and  Satan  shall 
issue  in  anything  short  of  the  complete  and  utter  de- 
struction of  this  great  adversary  of  God  and  man, 
"whom  He  shall  consume  with  the  Spirit  of  His  mouth 
and  destroy  with  the  brightness  of  His  coming,"  "  Ac- 
cording to  His  good  pleasure  which  He  hath  purposed  in 
Himself,  that  in  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  time. 
He  might  gather  together  in  one,  all  things  in  Christ, 
both  which  are  in  heaven  and  which  are  in  earth." 

Paul  also,  in  the  parallel  between  the  first  and  the 
eecond  Adam,  as  we  have  already  noticed  in  his  first 
epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  shows  how  that  which  is  base 
must  come  before  that  which  is  pure,  and  that  which  is 


Chap.  XYI.]    THE   EXODUS   OF   SIN   AOT)   DEATH.  803 

natural  before  that  which  is  spiritual,  and  that  which  is 
temporal,  before  that  which  is  eternal.  In  <  glowing  lan- 
guage he  describes  the  glorious  consummation,  when  that 
which  is  imperfect  is  done  away,  and  that  which  is  per- 
fect is  come,  and  the  righteous  dead  shall  have  been 
raised  and  immortalized  and  glorified  with  their  risen 
Lord,  and  exclaims,  "  Then  cometh  the  end,  when  He 
shall  have  delivered  up  the  kingdom  to  God  even  the 
Father ;  when  He  shall  have  put  down  all  rule  and  all 
authority  and  power;  for  He  must  reign  till  He  hath 
put  all  enemies  under  His  feet.  The  last  enemy  that 
shall  he  destroyed  is  Death.'''* 

Peter  likewise  in  his  Second  Epistle  describes  the  com- 
ing in  of  the  last  day,  and  the  complete  destruction  of 
all  the  wicked,  in  that  general  conflagration,  "  when  the 
heavens  being  on  fire  shall  be  dissolved,  and  the  earth 
shall  melt  with  fervent  heat,"  and  then  he  adds,  "  Never^ 
theless  we,  according  to  His  promise,  look  for  the  new 
heavens  and  a  new  earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness." 

But  it  is  reserved  for  the  last  book  in  the  Bible,  as  we 
might  naturally  suppose,  and  especially  for  its  concluding 
chapters,  to  give  us  the  fullest  description  of  the  closing 
scenes  in  this  earthly  drama,  and  the  most  perfect  picture 
of  the  world  to  come.  We  will  not  attempt  to  follow 
the  course  of  this  wonderful  vision,  through  its  scenes 
of  conflict  and  carnage,  and  fire  and  smoke,  in  which  our 
Lord,  now  as  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  the  Beginning 
and  the  Ending,  which  was  and  is  and  is  to  come,  the  Al- 
mighty, and  now  as  the  "  Lamb  of  God,  which  was  slain 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  and  now  as  a  glorious 
conquering  Prince,  is  described  as  waging  war  with  the 
many   protean   forms   of  evil,   personified    under   every 


804  THE   UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  11. 

actual  and  imaginable  symbol  or  image.  The  grotesque 
imagery  of  beasts  with  many  heads  and  horns,  of  dragons 
belching  forth  floods  of  water,  of  horses  breathing  fire 
from  their  nostrils,  of  locusts  with  scorpion  stings,  of  an- 
gele  flying  through  the  air  with  vials  of  wrath,  or  with 
sickles,  with  which  to  reap  the  harvest  of  the  earth, 
which  the  Seer  employs, — the  impossible  figures  he  intro- 
duces, the  extravagant  language  he  uses,  are  such  as  to 
defy  all  logical  analysis  or  definite  and  precise  applica- 
tion. Nor  is  it  at  all  necessary  to  a  most  clear  under- 
standing of  the  object  for  which  he  employs  them,  and 
of  the  truth  he  intends  to  express,  and  of  the  certain 
results  toward  which  they  all  point  us ;  namely :  the 
overthrow  and  abolishment  of  all  evil,  and  of  all  opposi- 
tion to  the  Gospel,  whatever  form  it  may  assume,  or 
however  strongly  it  may  be  entrenched,  or  however  vig- 
orously it  may  contend,  and  the  ultimate  reign  of  right- 
eousness, peace  and  love  throughout  the  universal 
kingdom  of  God. 

We  see  how  mystical  Babylon,  that  had  so  long  held 
sway  in  power  and  pride,  is  overthrown  and  consumed 
by  fire,  like  Sodom  of  old  ;  how  the  Beast  and  the  False 
Prophet,  whatever  forms  of  organized  evil  they  may  be 
thought  to  represent,  are  unceasingly  tormented  and  then 
consumed  in  "  the  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone,"  and  how 
finally,  the  great  Head-center  of  all  this  apostacy  and 
iniquity,  the  Arch  enemy  of  God  and  man,  is  first  bound 
for  a  season,  and  then,  when  his  time  is  fully  come,  is 
judged  and  destroyed  with  all  his  hosts  in  the  same  lake 
of  fire  with  the  Beast  and  the  False  Prophet. 

Then — after  how  long  an  interval  we  know  not — 
Cometh  the  end.  The  Judge  is  seated  upon  His  great 
white  throne,  and  before  His  face  heaven  and  earth  flee 


Chap    XVI.]    THE   EXODUS   OP   SIIT  AND   DEATH.  305 

away ;  the  dead,  small  and  great,  stand  before  Him.  The 
books  are  opened,  and  every  one  is  judged  according  to 
his  works.  And  another  book  is  opened,  which  is  the 
Book  of  Life.  And  whosoever  is  not  found  written  in 
the  Book  of  Life  {en  te  hiblo  tes  zoes)  is  cast  into  the 
lake  of  fire  prepai-ed  for  the  devil  and  his  angels.  This 
IS  THE  Second  Death.  And  Death  and  Hell  also  are 
cast  into  the  same  all-consuming  lake  of  fire  ;  and  this 
old  earth,  with  its  jSheoly  its  Hades ^  its  Gehenna^  its 
Tophet^  its  Tartarus^  or  by  whatever  name  the  place  of 
the  abode  of  the  wicked  herein  confined  may  be  known, 
is  consumed  with  the  Adsible  heavens,  in  one  general  con- 
flagration ;  and  the  curtain  falls  upon  time,  and  eternity 
begins. 

Once  more  for  a  little  season  it  is  lifted,  and  we  look 
in,  for  a  moment,  upon  the  glories  of  the  celestial  and 
eternal  world.  We  see  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth, 
"  for  the  first  heaven  and  the  first  earth  are  passed  away." 
We  see  the  "  New  Jerusalem  coming  down  from  God  out 
of  heaven,"  with  its  jasper  walls,  its  pearly  gates,  its 
brilliant  palaces,  its  golden  streets  and  a  pure  river  of 
Avater  of  life,  clear  as  crystal,  proceeding  out  of  the 
throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
street  of  it,  and  on  either  side  of  the  river,  is  the  Tree 
of  Life^  bearing  twelve  manner  of  precious  fruits. 
There  are  no  cherubim  with  flaming  swords  to  guard  its 
approach.  The  gates  are  not  shut  by  day — there  is  no 
night  there — We  see  its  celestial  and  glorified  inhabitants, 
clothed  in  white,  with  crowns  on  their  heads,  and  harps 
in  their  hands,  singing  praises  unto  God  and  the  Lamb. 
"  There  shall  be  no  more  curse."  "  There  shall  be  no 
more  death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there 
be  any  more  pain,/b/*  the  former  things  are  passed  away  ,^^ 


806  THE    UNSPEAKABLE    GIFT.  [Part  TI. 

The  Lamb  which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  throne  shall  feed 
them,  and  lead  them  unto  living  fountains  of  water,  and 
God  shall  wipe  away  all  tears  from  their  eyes  ;  and  they 
shall  see  His  face,  and  His  name  shall  be  in  their  fore- 
heads. And  there  shall  be  no  night  there,  and  they  need 
no  candle,  neither  light  of  the  Sun,  for  the  Lord  God 
giveth  them  light  and  they  shall  reign  forever  and  ever. 

These  sayings  are  faithful  and  true.     "  He  which  tes- 
tifieth  these  things  saith  surely  I  come  quickly.     Amen, 
;,  Lord  Jesus." 


NOTE  {to  the  Second  Edition). 


We  have  said  little  or  nothing  in  the  foregoing  pages  with  respect 
to  the  Salvation  of  Infants  and  others  who  «lie  without  having  com- 
mitted actual  sin,  simply  because  the  Scriptures  are  so  almost 
absolutely  silent  on  this  question;  and  we  do  not  care  to  impose 
any  speculations  of  our  own  upon  the  reader.  But  let  it  not  be  in- 
ferred that  our  doctrine  interposes  any  obstacles  to  a  bright  and 
cheerful  hope  concerning  them.  Indeed,  it  is  infinitely  more  en- 
couraging every  way  than  the  traditional  doctrine  we  are  opposing. 

Of  course,  we  hold  with  traditional  theologians,  that  physical 
death  is  tlie  common  lot  of  all  the  children  of  Adam  in  cons(>quence 
of  sin. —  But  here  we  separate.  They  hold  to  the  abominable  doc- 
trine that  we  are  all  under  the  doom  of  eternal  misery  in  a  life 
beyond,  in  consequence  of  the  sin  of  our  first  parents,  and  that  all 
who  are  not  saved  must  inevitably  suflFer  it;  and  their  theology 
presents  us  with  no  logical  scheme  for  the  salvation  of  those  who 
pass  out  of  life  free  from  all  actual  personal  sin,  from  this  horrible 
doom,  nor  any  hope,  excepting  that  it  is  too  horrible  to  be  believed. 

But  we  hold  that  no  creature  is  punishable  in  another  life  but  for 
his  own  personal  sins  —  and  as  for  the  Life  Everlasting  —  it  is  not  a 
reward  of  merit  to  any  one,  nor  given  on  account  of  superior  ex- 
cellence, but  it  is  a  pure  gift  of  free  grace:  and  as  such,  we  know  of 
no  reason  why  it  may  not  be  given  to  mortals  who  have  not  lived 
long  enough  to  sin,  as  well  as  to  those  who  have  actually  sinned. 
We  cannot  believe  in  the  final  salvation  of  all  men,  because  the 
Scriptures  forbid  us  to  hope  for  it  in  the  case  of  those  who  deliber- 
ately reject  that  Saviour  through  whom  alone  Eternal  Life  can  be 
given;  but  the  case  of  those  who  have  never  rejected  any  such  offer 
is  quite  different.  As  to  the  conditions  of  its  bestowment  upon 
them,  we  do  not  profess  to  be  wise  above  what  is  written. 

On  this  question  then,  so  far  as  the  Scriptures  leave  us  uninstruct- 
ed,  every  one  must  haA'e  the  liberty  of  entertaining  such  an  opin- 
ion as  his  sense  of  the  wisdom,  justice,  goodness  and  grace  of  God, 
as  made  known  in  the  Gospel  of  His  Son,  will  warrant. 


SUPPLEMENT. 


The  Two   Doctrines   of  Human    Immortality 
Contrasted. 


In  our  reading  on  both  sides  of  this  question  of  Human  Im- 
mortality, —  and  this  has  embraced  a  very  large  number  of 
authors,  —  we  have  noted  many  striking  passages,  a  few  of 
which  have  been  introduced  into  the  body  of  this  volume; 
others  have  been  added  as  foot  notes  since  completing  it: 
there  are  still  many  others,  some  of  which, — for  the  material  is 
too  copious  to  admit  of  anything  more  than  here  and  there 
certain  fragmentary  selections, — will,  perhaps,  serve  a  useful 
purpose,  by  being  gathered  into  this  supplementary  note,  under 
the  two  classes  to  which  they  belong,  and  placed  side  by  side 
on  opposite  pages.  The  reader  will  then  be  able,  at  a  glance, 
to  see  what  has  been  said  by  various  authors,  inspired  and  un- 
inspired, theological,  philosophical,  polemical  and  poetical,  on 
this  question  pro  and  con.  and  by  comparing  these  opposing 
views  with  each  other  and  with  the  Word  of  God,  he  will  be 
able  easily  to  decide  for  himself  which  of  these  two  conflicting 
theories  has  the  sanction  of  Scripture,  and  which  is  in  conflict 
with  it. 

While  this  question  presents  a  great  variety  of  phases,  there 
are  in  reality  but  two  sides  to  it,  or  two  main  theories  concern- 
ing it.  We  understand  them  to  be  substantially  and  in  general 
terms  as  follows: 

[N".  B.  The  reader  will  understand  that  the  Scriptural  view  is 
continued  throughout  on  the  Left  hand  pages;  and  the  Anti-scrip' 
tural  view  on  the  Eight  hand  pages,  to  the  end.] 


h 


808  THE    SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINB. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die.**— Jehovah. 

STATEMENT  OF  DOCTRINE. 

Exempt  ion  from  death  was  assured  to  Adam  on  condition  of  per* 
feet  obedience.  Failing  through  sin,  to  secure  this,  he  became  a 
mortal  man,  and  the  progenitor  of  a  mortal  and  sinful  race. 

But  a  second  Adam,  even  the  Son  of  God  from  heaven,  who  is 
both  sinless  and  absolutely  immortal,  has  been  provided,  by  whom 
the  whole  Adamic  race  have  been  redeemed  from  death,  and  through 
wh&m  immortality  is  again  made  possible  for  every  one  who  will 
receive  it  in  the  way  made  known  in  the  Gospel; — "  For  God  so 
loved  the  world  that  Re  gave  His  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish,  but  have  Everlasting  Life.''* 
Those  lohofail  of  this  great  salvation,  whether  many  or  few,  must 
of  necessity,  utterly  and  forever  perish  in  the  Second  Deathffrom 
which  there  is  no  recovery. 


"And  the  Lord  God  commanded  the  man  saying,  Of  every 
tree  of  the  garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat;  but  of  the  tree  of 
the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou  shalt  not  eat  of  it;  for  in 
the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof  thou  shalt  suiely  die." 
Jehovah. 

"And  the  Lord  said,  Behold,  the  man  is  become  as  one  of  us, 
to  know  good  and  evil;  and  now  lest  he  put  forth  his  hand  and 
take  also  of  the  Tree  of  Life  and  live  forever — Therefore  the 
Lord  sent  him  forth  from  the  garden  of  Eden  to  till  the  ground 
from  whence  he  was  taken."    Jehovah. 

What  can  these  words  mean  unless  they  mean  what  they  say, 
that  God  would  not  allow  the  life  of  man  to  be  endlessly  per- 

getuated  after  he  had  sinned,  that  this  was  the  very  reason  why 
e  was  debarred  from  the  Tree  of  Life — "  Lest  he  put  forth  his 
hand  and  eat  and  live  forever,  Therefore,*'  he  was  driven  from 
the  garden. 

And  the  Lord  said  "  Cursed  is  the  ground  for  thy  sake,  in  sor- 
row shalt  thou  eat  of  it  all  the  days  of  thy  (natural)  life— till 
thou  return  unto  the  ground ;  for  out  of  it  wast  thou  taken. 

For  dust  thou  art  and  unto  dust  shalt  thou  return And 

all  the  days  that  Adam  lived  were  nine  hundred  and  thirty 
years;  and  he  died.''    Gen.  3:  17,  19,  and  6:  5.    Jehovah. 

"  The  wicked  is  reserved  to  the  day  of  destruction."    Job. 

*'  The  wicked  shall  perish,  and  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  shall 
be  as  the  fat  of  lambs;  they  shall  consume;  into  smoke  shall 
they  consume  away."    David. 

"  The  lamp  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put  out."    Solomon. 

"The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die."    Ezekiel. 

"  The  destruction  of  transgressors  and  of  sinners  shall  be  to- 
gether, and  they  that  forsake  the  Lord  shall  be  consumed." 
Isaiah. 

lC<miinned  on  next  left  hand  page,} 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  809 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die. "—Satan. 

STATEMENT  OF  DOCTRINE. 

An  unconditional  and  inevitable  Immortality  was  assured  to 
Adam  in  his  creation;  and  he  was  constituted  the  progenitor  of  a 
race  of  beings  who  like  himself  are  immortal.*  By  sin  he  incurred 
for  himself  and  all  his  posterity  the  wrath  and  curse  of  God,  and 
the  consequent  doom  of  ^'  Everlasting  punishment  "  {in  the  sense  of 
endless  torment  or  misery)  beyond  this  life;  from  which  doom  there 
is  no  salvation  but  through  a  Divine  Saviour. 

Such  a  Saviour  has  been  provided  in  Jesus  Christ.  At  this  point 
believers  in  the  natural  and  necessary  immortality  of  man  divide 
into  two  Schools,  viz.:  1.  Partialists,  who  hold  that  this  endless 
punishment  will  be  the  certain  doom  of  a  portion  of  the  human 
race ;  2.  Universalists,  who,  revolting  from  so  dreadful  a  conclu- 
sion, hold  (with  more  or  less  confidence),  that  every  individual  of 
the  race  will,  sooner  or  later,  be  saved  to  a  blessed  immortality. 


"And  the  serpent  said  unto  the  woman,  Ye  shall  not  surely 
die ;  for  God  doth  know  that  in  the  day  ye  eat  thereof  your 
eyes  shall  be  opened ;  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods  knowing  good 
and  evil."    Satan. 

"The  soul  was  created  immortal.  Both  the  body  and  the 
mind  of  man  were  originally  formed  and  destined  for  Immor- 
tality. After  the  apostacy,  however,  the  body  was  sentenced  to 
return  to  dust.  [The  Bible  says  *  Thou  *  not  thy  body,  but  thou 
thyself.]  But  the  soul  was  left  possessed  of  the  never  dying 
principle  with  which  it  was  originally  endowed;  was  incapable 
of  dissolution  and  indestructible  except  by  the  exertion  of  Al- 
mighty Power."     Theology  Ser.  22.  T.  Dwight. 

[This  is  Platonic  Scholasticism.  It  has  been  read  into  the 
Scriptures.  It  is  not  found  there.  No  such  distinction  is 
made  in  them  between  Adam's  body  and  Adam's  soul.  The 
command  is  addressed  to  one  individual  Thou;  and  the  penalty 
falls  upon  the  whole  individual.  In  the  death  threatened  by 
God,  and  in  the  death  denied  by  Satan,  and  in  the  death  which 
it  is  said  "  he  died,"  the  same  word  muth  is  used  throughout, 
and  must  carry  the  same  meaning  and  be  equally  inclusive.] 

"With  lies  ye  have  made  the  heart  of  the  righteous  sad, 
whom  I  have  not  made  sad,  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  the 
wicked,  that  he  should  not  return  from  his  wicked  way,  by 
promising  him  Life.'^  God  thus  rebukes,  by  the  mouth  of  Ezekiel, 
The  False  Pkophets. 

*Some  hold  that  children  derive  their  immortality  by  traduction  from  their 
rogei"'- —  -•" ^x.^j.1^  1,.  .^- — ii_- ^ ^   J  ,.  _         ..  ,  .,  ■,... 

its  he 
birth. 


progenitor  ;  others  that  it  is  directly  from  God,  by  creation ;  while  conditional- 
iBta  hold  that  it  is  bestowed  as  a  special  gift,  only  by  a  spiritual  or  second 


[fiontinued  on  next  right  Jiandpage.} 


310  THE   SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die.'^— Jehovah. 

**  They  shall  be  as  though  they  had  not  been."     Obadiah. 

"The  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  as  an  oven,  and  all  the 
proud,  yea,  and  all  that  do  wickedly  shall  be  stubble;  and  the 
day  that  cometh  shall  burn  them  up,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts, 
that  it  shall  leave  them  neither  root  nor  branch."     Malachi. 

*'  Whose  fan  is  in  His  hand  and  He  will  thoroughly  purge 
His  floor,  and  gather  His  wheat  into  the  garner;  but  the  chaff 
will  He  burn  up  with  unquenchable  fire."     John  Baptist. 

"  Yerily,  verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  Except  a  man  be  born  again 
he  cannot  see  the  Kingdom  of  God.  As  Moses  lifted  up  the 
serpent  in  the  wilderness,  even  so  must  the  Son  of  man  be  lifted 
up,  that  whosoever  believeth  in  Him  should  not  perish  but 
have  everlasting  life."  "  I  am  the  Door;  by  Me  if  any  man  en- 
ter in  he  shall  be  saved.  I  give  unto  them  Eternal  Life;  and 
they  shall  never  perish,  neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  my 
hand."  "If  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  He,  ye  shall  die  in  your 
sins."  "Ye  will  not  come  unto  Me  that  ye  might  have  life." 
"This  is  Eternal  Life  that  they  might  know  Thee  the  only  true 
God  and  Jesus  Christ,  whom  Thou  has  sent."  Jesus  Christ 
OUR  Lord. 

"  There  is  none  other  name  under  heaven  given  among  men, 
whereby  we  must  be  saved;  neither  is  there  salvation  in  any 
other."  "  But  these,  as  natural  brute  beasts— shall  utterly  perish 
in  their  own  corruption." — "The  day  of  judgment  and  x>€rdi- 
tion  of  ungodly  men."     The  Apostle  Peter. 

"  The  wages  of  sin  is  death,  but  the  gift  of  God  is  Eternal 
Life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord."  "If  ye  live  after  the 
flesh,  ye  shnll  die  ;  but  if  ye,  through  the  spirit  do  mortify  the 
deeds  of  the  body,  ye  shall  live.  He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh 
shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption;  but  he  that  soweth  to  the 
spirit,  shall  of  the  spirit  reap  Life  Everlasting."  "  If  our  Gos- 
pel be  hid,  it  is  hid  to  them  that  are  lost" — "  whose  end  is  de- 
struction."   The  Apostle  Paul. 

"  Sin  when  it  is  finished,  bringeth  forth  Death."  "Let  him 
know  that  he  which  converteth  a  sinner  from  the  error  of  his 
way  shall  save  a  soul  from  death,  and  hide  a  multitude  ol  sins." 
The  Apostle  James. 

"  This  is  the  record,  that  God  hath  given  to  us  Eternal  Life, 
and  this  Life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son,  hath  the  Life 
and  he  that  hath  not  the  Son,  hath  not  the  Life."  "And  I  saw 
the  dead  stand  before  God,  and  the  books  were  opened,  and  the 
dead  were  judged,  and  whosoever  was  not  found  written  in  the 
Book  of  Life  was  cast  into  tlie  lake  of  fire.  And  death  and  hell 
were  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire.  This  is  the  second  death.^'  Thb 
Apostle  John. 

[Continued  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCEIPTITRAL    DOCTRINE.  811 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan, 

What  may  have  been  surmised  or  said  or  taught  by  such  an- 
cient philosojjhers  and  theological  speculators  and  poets  as 
Thales,  Zoroaster,  Heraclitus,  Empedodes,  Pythagoras,  Xenoph- 
anes,  Anaxagoras,  Democritus,  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Epicurus,  Zeno,  Epictetus,  Pliny,  Seneca,  and  other  famous 
men  of  the  pagan  world,  it  does  not  concern  us  now  particular- 
ly to  inquire.  Some  of  them  argued  the  indestructible  nature 
of  the  human  soul  as  a  logical  deduction  from  the  postulate  of 
its  eternal  pre-existence ;  others  entertained  ideas  of  a  me- 
tempsychosis or  universal  transmigration  of  souls,  and  of  ulti- 
mate absorption  into  the  divine  essence  aud  complete  loss  of 
all  personal  identity;  others  of  an  utter  extinguishment  of  all 
being  in  death ;  others  of  a  shadowy,  ghostly  existence  after  this 
life,  and  of  various  pleasures  for  the  good,  and  of  tortures  for 
the  bad,  ending  perhaps  in  their  annihilation,  or  in  their  puri- 
fication and  restoration  to  happiness  or  perhaps,  in  the  final 
destruction  of  both  in  the  general  consummation  and  ruin  of 
ail  things.  Their  ideas  were  so  vague,  fluctuating,  fanciful, 
conflicting  and  contradictory,  as  to  forbid  the  belief  that  they 
were  very  generally  seriously  entertained  by  those  who  put  them 
forth,  or  by  those  upon  whom  they  were  imposed.  They  are 
such  at  any  rate,  as  to  defy  all  attempt  to  classify  or  arrange 
them  on  either  side  of  this  question. 


Nowhere  throughout  the  pagan  world,  either  in  ancient  or  in 
modern  times,  unillumined  by  the  light  of  Divine  revelation  do 
we  find  any  such  doctrine  of  an  individual  personal  immortality 
as  now  so  generally  prevails  throughout  Christendom,  much 
less  any  conception  of  that  way  of  attaining  to  it  as  is  brought 
to  light  in  the  Gospel.  Even  Plato  the  wisest  of  all  the  pagan 
philosophers  was  constrained  to  say,  "  It  appears  to  me  that 
to  know  them  (the  truths  relating  to  the  destiny  of  man)  clearly, 
in  this  present  life,  is  either  impossible  or  very  difficult.  .  .  We 
must  wait  till  some  one,  either  God  or  some  inspired  man  teach 
us— and  remove  the  darkness  from  our  eyes." — What  then  are 
we  taught  by  these  premonitions  of  the  future,  these  anxious 
desires,  these  hopes  and  fears  which  are  common  to  all  thinking 
men  even  in  the  darkness  of  heathenism? — Surely,  not  that  tho 
immortality  for  which  men  naturally  long  is  assured  to  them; 
but  rather  the  contrary — that  they  are  made  with  a  capacity  for 
an  endless  life  and  that  they  might  possess  it  if  they  were  only 
fitted  to  enjoy  it;  but  that  the  boon  has  been  forfeited,  and 
that  no  mere  man  is  wise  enough  to  tell  how  it  is  to  be 
regained  or  able  to  attain  to  it  without  divine  help.  Here  in 
this  universal  sentiment,  is  seen  the  necessity  for  the  Gospel. 
It  is  to  this  sentiment  that  it  addresses  itself.  It  is  this,  in- 
deed, that  makes  it  a  Gospel — a  message  of  good  tidings  to  per- 
ishing men. 

^Continued  on  next  right  hand  page,] 


812^  THE    SCRIPTUEAL   DOCTRINE.^ 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 
Not  one  word  or  hint  of  the  natural  immortality  of  man, 
•which  occupies  so  prominent  a  place  in  the  writings  of  the 
Post  Nicene  Fathers,  can  be  found  in  any  of  the  writings  of  the 
Earlier  Fathers.  They  always  and  uniformly  speak  of  Immor- 
tality and  Eternal  life  as  the  Gift  of  God  to  the  redeemed  and 
the  peculiar  portion  of  believers;  and  of  the  wicked  as  doomed 
to  Everlasting  destruction.  It  is  not  till  after  Platonism  has 
been  engrafted  upon  the  teachings  of  Christ  and  His  Apostles, 
thafe  we  find  any  other  doctrine. — We  can  find  place  for  only  a 
few  brief  citations.  For  a  more  full  and  complete  confirmation 
of  this  position,  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  "Ante  Nicene 
Christian  Library,"  edited  by  A.  Eoberts  d.d.  and  J.  Donald- 

SO]S^  LL.L. 

"  Thou  shalt  not  join  thyself  to  those  who  are  condemned  to 
death.'"  "He  that  chooseth  evil  shall  be  destroyed  together 
with  his  works." 

"  They  that  put  their  fa-ust  in  Him  shall  live  forever.^' 

Barnabas  a.d.  90. 

"  How  blessed  and  wonderful  are  the  gifts  of  God — Life  " 
in  Immortality  !  etc.    1  Epistle  of  Clement  a.d.  100. 

"Those  who  possess  these  virtues.  .  .  abide  unto  Eternal 
Life.^^  ....  "They  shall  live  in  the  world  to  come." 
"  Sin  brings  death."  .  .  ."All  who  will  not  repent  have  lost 
their  life."  "  They  are  ordained  to  death."  "  They  condemn 
themselves  to  death."  "Life  is  far  from  them,"  etc.,  etc. 
Heemas  a.d.  104. 

"Be  vigilant  as  God's  athlete;  the  reward  is  incorruption 
and  Eternal  life."  "The  bread  of  God  which  is  the  body  of 
Christ,  I  seek  and  His  blood,  which  is  love  incorruptible  and 
perpetual  life."  "  Christ  is  our  inseparable  life  "  "  That  He 
might  breathe  the  breath  of  immortality  into  His  Church."  ''The 
bread  which  is  the  medicine  of  immortality,  our  antidote,  that 
we  should  not  die,  but  live  forever."     Ignatius  a.d.  107. 

"  There  are  two  ways,  one  of  Life  and  one  of  Death."     The 

way  of  Life  is  this "  This  is  the  way  of  Life."     "  Now 

the  way  of  Death  is  this  "... 

"  Thou  shalt  share  all  things  with  thy  brother;  for  if  ye  are 
partners  in  that  which  is  deathless  (athanato),  how  much  more 
in  things  perishable"  {tots  thanatois),  etc.  Teaching  of  the 
Twelve  Apostles, — recently  discovered  manuscript— probable 
date  A.D.  100-150.    Anonymous. 

"  God  alone  is  uncreated  and  incorruptible;  but  all  things 
beside  Him  are  created  and  perishable.  For  this  reason  souls 
both  die  and  are  punished.  For  the  soul  cannot  live  of  itself  as 
God  does.  But  as  the  personal  man  does  not  always  exist,  and 
body  and  soul  are  not  forever  conjoined,  but  whenever  this 
harmony  may  be  dissolved,  the  soul  leaves  the  body,  and  the 
man  is  no  more;  so  likewise  whenever  it  is  necessary  that  the 
{ContimLed  on  next  left  luxnd  page.} 


THE   AIS-TI-SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE.  313 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

Hence  the  Apostle  Paul  writes  to  the  Galatians,  "  If  any  man 
preach  any  other  Gospel  unto  you,"  any  other  than  that 
Eternal  life  can  only  be  found  but  in  Christ — "  Let  him  be 
accursed." 


From  the  middle  of  the  second  century  onward,  we  notice  a 
marked  change  in  the  teaching  of  the  Fathers  in  the  character 
of  the  questions  they  discussed  and  in  the  phraseology  they 
employed,  introduced  by  the  Platonic  philosophers  who  had 
come  into  the  Christian  church.  Questions  relating  to  the  na- 
ture of  man,  the  soul  of  man;  the  nature  of  the  punishment 
that  would  be  inflicted  on  the  wicked,  and  similar  themes  come 
now  prominently  into  view.  There  is  an  evident  effort  to  bring 
the  doctrines  of  Christianity  into  accord  with  the  popular  teach- 
ing of  the  schools.  Dropping  the  idea  of  the  eternal  pre-exis- 
tence  of  the  soul  as  taught  by  Plato,  but  which  is  too  evidently 
atheistic  to  be  retained,  these  Christianized  Platonists  en- 
deavored to  show  that  the  doctrine  of  natural  immortality,  as 
taught  by  him,  is  substantially  the  same  as  that  taught  by  the 
Scripture— that  the  redeemed  are  not  actually  made  imniortal 
by  a  new  birth  from  above,  but  that  they  are  naturally  and 
inherently  immortal.  In  this  way  the  vital  distinction  between 
the  saved  and  the  lost  was  effectually  ignored,  and  the  real 
fundamental  principle  of  the  Gospel  was  hidden  from  view. 
Those  phrases,  such  as  "  the  immortal  soul,"  "  the  never  dying 
soul,"  "  the  death  that  never  dies,"  that  have  become  so  com- 
mon in  our  so-called  Christian  teaching,  now  begin  to  appear  in 
their  writings. 


The  doctrine  of  the  eternal  torment  of  the  unsaved,  as  a 
logical  deduction  from  that  of  the  necessary  immortality  of  all 
souls,  now  begins  to  find  advocates. 

Even  Justin,  who  was  an  earnest  Christian  teacher,  had  been 
so  thoroughly  imbued  with  this  philosophy  before  his  conver- 
sion, that  he  brought  much  of  it  with  him  into  his  Christian 
teaching.  He  still  continued  to  wear  the  philosopher's  garb, 
and  though  he  was  for  the  most  part  faithful  to  the  Gospel  in 
the  main,  here  and  there  ambiguous  expressions  leaning 
toward  the  Platonic  view  of  the  human  soul  may  be  found  in 
some  of  his  writings.  But  these  views  were  more  and  more 
decidedly  expressed  under  his  successors,  until  eventually  the 
teaching  of  Moses  and  the  Prophets  and  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  was  completely  subordinated  to  the  philosophy  of 
Plato;  and  this  was  made  the  rigid  and  unbending  rule  for  the 
Interpreting  the  Scriptures. 


k 


[Contimied  on  next  right  hand  page.} 

14 


314  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.^ 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

soul  sliould  no  longer  be  (Elnai)  the  vital  spark  leaves  it,  and 
the  soul  is  no  more,  hut  itself  returns  whence  it  was  taken." 

"  God  delaj'^s  causing  the  confusion  and  destruction  of  the 
whole  world,  by  which  wicked  angels,  and  demons  and  men  shall 
cease  to  exist."    Justin  Martyr  a.d.  135. 

"  Death  was  sent  as  a  benefit  to  Adam,  that  lie  might  not 
continue  forever  existent  in  sin."  ''  When  thou  shalt  have  put 
off  mortality  and  have  put  on  immortality,  thou  wilt  worthily 
see  God.  For  God  shall  raise  up  thy  flesh  immortal  with  thy 
soul,  then  having  become  immortal,  thou  wilt  see  him  who  is 
immortal,  if  thou  believe  on  him  here." 

"  But  some  will  say,  was  man  made  mortal  by  nature?  By 
no  means.  Immortal  ?  Nor  do  we  say  that.  If  immortal.  Be 
would  have  made  him  a  god.  If  mortal  God  would  have 
seemed  to  be  the  author  of  sin.  Therefore  He  made  him 
neither  mortal  nor  immortal,  but  capable  of  both,  so  that  if  he 
was  carried  to  the  things  that  lead  to  immortality,  he  might 
receive  immortality  as  a  reward  and  become  godlike.  But  on 
the  other  hand,  if  he  should  turn  to  the  works  of  death  he 
might  become  the  author  of  death  to  himself.  Now  God 
repairs  the  evil.  For  as  man  brought  death  upon  himself  by 
disobedience,  so  by  obeying  the  will  of  God,  he  that  chooseth 
may  obtain  for  himself  the  Eternal  Life.'  For  God  has  given  us 
a  law  and  holy  precepts  which  every  one  who  does,  may  be 
saved,  and  obtaining  the  resurrection  may  inherit  immortality." 
Theophilus  a.d.  182. 

"  The  unbelievers  and  the  blinded  of  this  world  shall  not 
inherit  the  world  of  the  life  to  come."  "  The  Apostolic  doctrine 
is  that  they  who  believe  in  Him  shall  be  immortal." 

"  Life  is  not  from  ourselves,  or  from  our  nature,  but  it  is 
given  or  bestowed  according  to  the  grace  of  God;  and  therefore 
he  who  preserves  the  gift  of  Life,  and  returns  thanks  to  Him 
who  bestows  it,  he  shall  receive  length  of  days  forever  and  ever;  but 
he  who  rejects  it,  and  proves  unthankful  to  his  Maker  for  cre- 
ating him,  and  will  not  know  Him  who  bestows  it. — he  deprives 
himself  of  the  gift  of  duration  to  all  eterniiy.  And  therefore  the 
Lord  speaks  thus  of  such  unthankful  persons.  If  you  have  not 
been  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  who  will  commit  much  to 
you  ? — intimating  thereby  unto  us  that  they  who  are  unthank- 
ful to  Him  with  respect  to  this  short  transitory  life  which  is 
His  gift — the  effect  of  His  bounty — shall  he  most  justly  deprived 
of  length  of  days  for  ever  and  ever." 

"  For  it  was  to  this  end  that  the  Word  of  God  was  made  man, 
and  He  who  was  the  Son  of  God  became  the  Son  of  Man,  that 
man  having  been  taken  into  the  Word,  and  received  the  adoption, 
might  become  the  Son  of  God.  For  by  no  other  means 
could  he  have  attained  to  incorruptibility  and  immortality. 
But  how  could  we  be  joined  to  incorruptibilUy  and  immortality, 
ICantinued  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  315 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

But  the  gross  vehemence  with  which  this  fearful  doctrine  of 
the  eternal  torment  of  the  unsaved  was  urged  by  Tatian,  Ter- 
tullian,  Ilippolytus  and  others,  and  the  lurid  pictures  which 
were  drawn  of  their  hopeless  agonies,  produced  a  reaction  in 
the  minds  of  many  who  were  of  the  same  philosophic  school ; 
and  as  a  consequence,  we  soon  find  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  with  many  others,  especially  Origen 
the  most  prominent  of  all,  devising  and  advocating  schemes  of 
a  general  restoration,  by  which,  not  the  wicked  themselves, 
but  only  their  sins  were  to  be  destroyed  or  purged  away  in 
eternal  fire,  while  their  souls  were  to  be  made  pure  and  blessed 
forever.  This  doctrine,  with  various  modifications,  is  having  a 
remarkable  revival  in  our  day.  Hence  in  the  citations  which 
follow  under  the  general  head  of  the  natural  and  inevitable 
immortality  of  man,  a  great  variety  of  views  will  be  found  ex- 
pressed. No  attempt  will  be  made  to  classify  them,  or  to 
arrange  them  in  doctrinal  or  chronological  order. 


Athenagoras  in  the  closing  years  of  the  second  century  was 
one  of  the  first  if  not  the  very  first  who  explicitly  taught  this 
doctrine.     He  says : 

"  Knowing  that  when  released  from  this  life,  we  shall 
either  live  another  nobler,  not  earthly  but  heavenly — or  if  wo 
share  the  ruin  of  others,  a  worse  life,  even  in  fire — for  God  did 
not  create  us  like  sheep  or  cattle,  to  serve  a  purpose,  and  then 
perish  and  disappear."  [This  by  the  way  is  the  very  argu- 
ment Dr.  T.  D wight  in  his  system  of  theology  employes  to  prove 
the  necessary  immortality  of  man.  He  says  (Ser.  xxviii)  that 
the  "death"  threatened  to  Adam  "could  not  have  been  anni- 
hilation ;  for  this  was  certainly  no  part  of  God's  design  in  the 
creation  of  man."] 


"  Eternal  Life  will  be  the  lot  of  the  damned."  *'  Every  soul 
is  immortal."  "  The  philosophers  know  the  difference  between 
secret  [ignis  sapiens)  and  common  fiie.  That  which  serves  for 
the  use  of  man  is  of  quite  another  nature  from  that  which  min- 
isters to  the  justice  of  God,  whether  it  hurls  thunderbolts 
from  heaven,  or  belches  forth  from  the  volcano,  for  it  burns 
without  consuming  and  repairs  what  it  preys  upon.  The 
mountains  remain  tliaugh  everburning;  the  man  who  is  struck 
by  lightning  is  not  reduced  to  ashes  by  the  fire.  Here  is  a 
witness  of  the  eternal  fire,  an  emblem  of  judgment  perpetually 
feeding  its  penalty.  The  mountains  burn  and  ever  endure; 
why  not  guilty  men,  the  enemies  of  God  ?  " 

iContinued  on  next  right  handpage."] 


316  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE, 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

unless  first  incorruptibility  and  immortality  had  become  that 
which  we  also  are,  so  that  the  corruptible  might  be  swal- 
lowed up  by  incorruptibility  and  the  mortal  by  immortal- 
ity, that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  Sons  ?  " 

"  This  was  done  that  man  should  not  suppose  that  the  incor- 
ruptibility which  belongs  to  God,  is  liis  own  naturally,  and 
also,  by  not  holding  the  truth,  should  boast  with  empty  pride, 
as  if  he  were  naturally  like  God.  For  Satan  thus  rendered 
man  more  ungrateful  to  his  Creator,  obscured  the  love  which  God 
had  toward  man  and  blinded  his  mind,  not  to  perceive  what 
is  worthy  of  God,  and  comparing  himself  and  judging  himself 
equal  with  God.  This,  therefore,  was  the  object  of  God's  long- 
Buffering,  that  man,  passing  through  all  things,  and  acquiring 
the  knowlege  of  discipline,  then  attaining  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead,  and  learning  from  experience  what  is  the  source 
of  his  salvation,  may  always  live  in  a  state  of  gratitude  to  the 
Lord,  having  obtained  from  Him  the  gift  of  incorruptibility 
that  he  might  love  Him  the  more,  and  that  he  may  know  him- 
self how  frail  and  mortal  he  is;  while  he  also  understands  God 
that  He  is  immortal  and  powerful  to  such  a  degree  as  to  confer 
immortality  upon  what  is  mortal  and  eternity  upon  what  is  tem- 
porary."   luEN^us  (Lib.  3:  18, 19.)  a.d.208. 

*'  Will  you  lay  aside  your  habitual  arrogance,  O  men,  who 
claim  God  as  your  Father,  and  maintain  that  you  are  immortal, 
just  as  He  is?  Will  you  inquire,  examine,  search  what  you  are 
yourselves;  whose  you  are;  of  what  parentage  you  are  supposed 
to  be;  what  you  do  in  the  world;  in  what  way  you  are  born; 
how  you  leap  into  life  ?  Will  you,  laying  aside  all  partiality, 
consider,  in  the  silence  of  your  thoughts  that  we  are  creatures 
either  quite  like  the  rest,  or  separated  by  no  great  difference  ?  " 
(Cap.  2:  16.)  "  Your  interests  are  in  jeopardy — the  salvation 
I  mean  of  your  souls;  and  unless  you  give  yourselves  to  know 
the  Supreme  God,  a  miserable  death  awaits  you,  not  bringing 
sudden  abolishment,  but  destroying  by  the  bitterness  of  its  grievous 
and  protracted  torment.  None  but  Almighty  God  can  preserve 
souls ;  nor  is  there  any  one  beside  who  can  give  them  length  of 
days,  and  grant  them  a  spirit  that  shall  never  die,  except  He 
who  alone  is  immortal  and  everlasting  and  restricted  by  no 
limit  of  time."  (Cap.  62.)  *'  For  souls  are  of  a  middle  or  interme- 
diate quality,  as  has  been  learned  from  Christ's  teaching,  and 
they  are  such  that  they  may,  on  the  one  hand,  perish,  if  they 
have  not  know^n  God;  and  on  the  other  hand,  be  delivered  from 
death,  if  they  have  given  heed  to  His  threatenings  and  proffered 
favors.  And  to  make  manifest  what  is  unknown,  this  is  mans 
real  death — this  which  leaves  nothing  behind.  For  that  which  is 
seen  by  the  eyes  is  only  a  separation  of  soul  from  body,  not  the 
last  end  of  abolishment;  this  I  say  is  man's  real  death,  when 
Bouls  which  know  not  God  shall  be  consumed  with  raging  fire  in 
protracted  torment.-' {Csip.  14.)  Arnobius  a.d.  300. 
iContinued  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  317 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satatst. 

"You  are  fond  of  spectacles ;  but  there  are  other  spectacles; 
that  day  which  is  disbelieved,  derided  by  the  nations,  the  last 
and  eternal  day  of  judgment,  when  all  ages  shall  be  swallowed 
up  in  one  conflagration — what  a  variety  of  spectacles  shall  then 
appear  ?  How  shall  I  admire,  how  laugh,  how  exult,  when  I 
behold  so  many  kings  and  false  gods  in  heaven  together  with 
Jove  himself  groaning  in  the  lowest  abyss  of  darkness;  so  many 
magistrates  who  persecuted  the  name  of  the  Lord,  liquifying  in 
fiercer  flames  than  they  ever  kindled  against  Christians ;  so  many 
sage  philosophers  blushing  in  raging  fire,  with  their  scholars 
whom  they  persuaded  to  despise  God,  and  to  disbelieve  the 
resurrection  ;  and  so  many  poets  shuddering  before  the  tri- 
bunal, not  of  Rhadamanthus,  not  of  Minos,  but  of  the  disbe- 
lieved Christ !  Then  shall  we  hear  the  tragedians  more  tune- 
ful in  the  expression  of  their  own  sufferings;  then  shall  we  see 
the  dancers  more  sprightly,  amidst  the  flames;  the  charioteer 
all  red-hot  in  his  burning  car;  and  the  wrestlers  hurled,  not 
upon  the  accustomed  list,  but  upon  a  plain  of  fire."  (De  Spec 
taculis  C.  30.)    T£LBtullian  a.d.  220. 


.  "  For  if  ye  believe  that  the  soul  is  originated  and  is  made 
immortal  by  God,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Plato,  we  ought 
not  to  refuse  that  God  is  able  to  raise  the  body  which  is  com- 
posed of  the  same  elements,  and  make  it  immortal 

To  those  who  have  done  well  shall  be  assigned  righteously 
eternal  bliss,  and  to  the  lovers  of  iniquity  shall  be  given  eternal 
punishment.  And  this  fire  which  is  unquenchable  and  with- 
out end,  awaits  those  latter,  and  a  certain  fiery  worm  which 
dietli  not,  and  which  does  not  waste  the  body,  but  continues 
bursting  forth  from  the  body  with  unending  pain.  No  sleep 
will  give  them  rest;  no  night  will  soothe  them;  no  death  will 
deliver  them  from  punishment;  n-)  voice  of  interceding  friends 
will  profit  them."     Hippolytus  a.d.  238. 


"Whereas  some  have  dared  to  assert  concerning  the  nature 
of  the  reasonable  soul  that  it  is  mortal;  we,  with  the  approba- 
tion of  the  Sacred  Council,  do  condemn  and  reprobate  all  who 
assert  that  the  intellectual  soul  is  mortal,  seeing  that  the  soul 
is  not  only  truly  and  of  itself  and  essentially  the  form  of  the 
human  body,  as  it  i*s  expressed  in  the  Canon  of  Pope  Clement 
Fifth,  and  likewise  Immoktal;  and  we  strictly  inhibit  all  from 
dogmatizing  otherwise ;  and  we  do  decree  that  all  who  adhere 
to  the  like  erroneous  assertions  shall  be  shunned  and  punished 
Si&  heretics.^^    I*ope  Leo  X. 

IContinued  on  next  right  hand  page.} 


318  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

"  Man  stands  erect  and  looks  upward  because  immortality  ia 
offered  him.  though  it  comes  not  unless  given  from  God.  For 
there  would  be  no  difference  between  the  just  and  the  unjust 
if  every  man  that  is  born  were  made  immortal.  Immortality, 
therefore,  is  not  a  law  of  our  nature,  but  the  wages  aud  reward 
of  virtue."     Lactantius  a.d.  310. 

"In  putting  dep:irted  souls  in  heaven,  hell  and  purgatory, 
you  destroy  the  arguments  wlierewith  Christ  and  Paul  prove 
the  resurrection.  What  God  doth  with  them,  that  shall  we 
know  when  we  come  to  them.  The  true  faith  puVeth  the  resur- 
rection, which  we  are  warned  to  look  for  every  hour.  The 
heathen  philosophers  denying  that,  did  put  that  souls  did  ever 
live.     And  the  pope  joineth  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  Christ  and 

the  fleshly  doctrine   of  phili)SOi>hers   together  things  so 

contrary  that  they  cannot  agree.  And  because  the  fleshly 
minded  pope  consenteth  unto  heathen  doctrine  therefore  he 
001  rupteth  the  Scriptures  to  establish  it.  If  the  souls  be  in 
heaven,  tell  me  why  they  be  not  in  as  good  case  as  tlie  angels 
be,  and  then  what  cause  is  there  of  the  resurrection?  " 

William  Tyndale. 

"I  permit  the  pope  to  establish  articles  of  faith  for  his  faith- 
ful followers ;  such  as  the  bread  and  wine  are  transmuted  in 
the  sacrament:  that  the  divine  essence  is  neither  generative 
nor  generated ;  that  the  soul  is  the  substantial  form  of  the 
human  body;  and  himself  is  the  ruler  of  the  world  and  king 
of  heaven,  and  Cod  of  earth;  and  that  the  soul  is  immortal; 
and  all  the  numberless  prodigies  of  the  Romish  dunghill  of 
decretals."     Maktin  Luthek. 

"  The  human  soul  is  not  a  simple  abstract  entity,  but  is  a 
concrete  thing.  As  such  it  is  subject  to  the  laws  of  dissolution. 
Sin  is  per  se  destructive.  It  ruins.  It  destroys  the  soul  that 
practices  it.  The  ]Dunishment  of  hell  consists  in  the  sinner  be- 
ing left  a  prey  to  the  process  of  destruction,  which  is  already 
preying  upon  his  very  being.  The  completion  of  this  process  is 
absolute  death, — that  is,  it  is  the  completed  destruction  of  that 
concrete  reality,  which  constitutes  the  human  personality. 
The  dissolution  of  material  organisms  is  a  species  of  com- 
bustion. This  holds  true  of  the  destruction  of  the  soul. 
As  the  dissolution  of  material  organisms  is  their  combus- 
tion, so  the  corrosive  and  disorganizing  action  of  sin  upon  the 
soul,  is  the  the  soul's  combustion.  In  this  sense  the  scriptural 
figure  of  hell-tire  is  strictly  grounded  in  reality.  The  wages  of 
Bin  is  ruin,  destruction,  death.  As  the  flame  feeds  upon  the 
consuming  candle  until  its  whole  substance  is  dissipated  and 
exhausted,  so  the  wasting  disease  of  sin  feeds  upon  the  sub- 
stance of  the  soul,  until  the  persoual  organism  is  entirely 
broken  down  and  destroyed."    Db.  Richard  Rothe. 

iContinued  on  next  l^ft  lumd  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  319 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

The  Koran  abounds  in  such  "orthodox"  sentiments  as 
these : 

"  rhe  unbelievers  shall  be  companions  of  hell-fire  forever;  " 
"  Those  who  disbelieve  we  will  surely  cast  to  be  broiled  in  hell- 
fire  ;  so  often  as  their  skins  shall  be  burned,  we  will  give  them 
other  skins  in  exchange,  that  they  may  taste  the  sharper  tor- 
ment." "  They  shall  be  dragged  on  their  faces  into  hell,  and  it 
shall  be  said  unto  them  '  Taste  ye  that  torment  of  hell-fire  which 
ye  rejected  as  a  falsehood,"  ''  They  shall  be  taken  by  the  fore- 
locks and  the  feet  and  flung  into  hell,  where  they  shall  drink 
scalding  water."  "  The  true  believers,  lying  on  couches,  shall 
look  down  upon  the  infidels  in  hell  and  laugh  them  to  scorn." 
Mohammed. 


"  The  bodies  of  men  after  death  return  to  dust  and  see  cor- 
ruption; but  their  souls  (which  neither  die,  nor  sleep),  having 
an  immortal  subsistence,  immediately  return  to  God  who  gave 
them.  The  souls  of  the  righteous,  then  being  made  perfect  in 
holiness,  are  received  into  the  highest  heavens,  where  they  be- 
hold the  face  of  God  in  light  and  glory,  waiting  for  the  full 
redemption  of  their  bodies;  and  the  souls  of  the  wicked  are  cast 
into  hell,  where  they  remain  in  torment  and  utter  darkness 
reserved  to  the  judgment  of  the  great  day."  Presbyterian  Con- 
fession of  Faith. 


"Those  wicked  men  who  died  many  years  ago,  their  souls 
went  to  hell,  and  there  tliey  are  still;  those  who  went  to  hell  in 
former  ages  of  the  world  have  been  in  hell  ever  since,  all  the 
while  suffering  torment.  They  have  nothing  else  to  spend  their 
time  in  there,  but  to  suffer  torment;  they  are  kept  in  being  for 
no  other  purpose.' '     Sermons  Vol.  II.,  J.  Edwards. 


Time  that  changes  all,  yet  changes  us  in  vain; 

The  body,  not  the  mind ;  nor  can  control 

The  immortal  vigor  or  abate  the  soul."     Dbyden. 


**  The  soul,  immortal  substance  to  remain; 
Conscious  of  joy,  and  capable  of  pain."    Pope. 


"  For  though  the  soul  of  man 
Be  got  when  he  is  made,  't  is  b  )rn  but  then 
When  man  doth  die;  and  body's  as  the  womb; 
As  a  midwife  death  directs  us  home."    Donne. 

IContiniied  on  next  right  hand  page.} 


820  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

"  The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  name 
are  alike  unknown  to  the  entire  Bible."     Olshausbn. 


"  I  must  add  that  not  a  single  passage  from  Genesis  to  Reve- 
lation teaches,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  the  doctrine  of  man's  nat- 
ural Immortality."     Creative  Week.    G.  D.  Boakdman. 


"  The  doctrine  we  maintain  is  this  —  that  when  God 
made  man,  He  made  him  capable  of  immortality  upon  the  ful- 
filment of  certain  conditions.  Immortality  was,  and  is,  a  gift  of 
grace;  not  a  natural  endowment  to  be  inherited  by  natural 
means.  I  use  the  phrase  '  Conditional  Immortality '  to  indi- 
cate that,  in  our  opinion,  no  man  will  live  forever  on  account 
of  any  intrinsic  qualities  which  he  has,  but  on  account 
of  a  vital  faith,  by  means  of  which  the  true  Christian  is  brought 
into  union  with  the  Source  and  Giver  of  all  life."  Immortality 
in  Christ.    Rev.  S.  H,  Wableigh. 


"  The  natural  dignity  and  the  natural  immortality  of  man 
have,  in  the  light  of  revelation,  vanished  into  air.  His  body 
corruptible,  his  mind  earthly,  have  turned  out  to  be  but  the  shad- 
ows and  representation  of  something  better."  Soul  and  Spirit. 
D.  Thom  d.d. 


"  Life  to  the  godless  must  be  the  beginning  of  destruction 
since  nothing  but  God  and  that  which  pleases  Him  can  per- 
manently exist."  Bampton  Lecture.  Dr.  Thomson,  Arch- 
bishop OF  York. 


"Evil  possesses  no  divine  attribute;  it  had  a  beginning  and 
it  shall  have  an  end.  Evil  is  an  accident  of  existence;  it  is  not 
an  essential,  and  it  must  be  utterly  extinguished.  With  the 
destruction  of  evil  persons,  all  evil  deeds  and  evil  principles 
shall  die."     Man  next  to  God.    S.  H.  Warleigh. 


"  If  I  believe  in  the  hopeless  doom  of  incorrigible  sin,  and  also 
in  the  undimmed  glory  of  a  perfected  Kingdom,  I  must  believe 
in  the  annihilation  of  the  incorrigibly  wicked.  Fire,  in  the 
Bible,  is  generally  an  emblem  of  destruction,  not  of  torment. 
The  chaff,  the  tares,  the  fruitless  tree,  are  not  to  be 
tortured,  but  to  be  destroyed.  The  Hell-fire  spoken  of  in  the 
New  Testament,  is  the  fire  of  Gehenna,  kept  burning  outside 
IConiinv^d  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTUEAL   DOCTEINE.  321 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die.^^-SATAir. 

"  Gird  up  thy  mind  to  contemplation,  trembling  inhabitant  of 

earth, 
Tenant  of  a  hovel  for  a  day— thou  art  heir  of  the  universe 

forever ; 
For  neither  congealing  of  the  grave,  nor  gulfing  waters  of  the 

firmament, 
Nor  expansive  airs  of  heaven,  nordissipative  fires  of  Gehenna, 
Nor  rust,  nor  rest,  nor  wear,  nor  waste,  nor  loss,  nor  chance, 

nor  change. 
Shall  avail  to  quench  or  overwhelm  the  spark  of  soul  withia 

thee. 
*'  Thou  art  an  imperishable  leaf  on  the  ever-green  bay-tree  of 

existence, 
A  word  from  Wisdom's  mouth  that  cannot  be  unspoken; 
A  ray  of  Love's  own  light,  a  drop  in  Mercy's  sea; 
A  creature  marvelous  and  fearful,  begotten  by  the  fiat    of 

Omnipotence. 

*•  I,  that  speak  in  weakness,  and  ye  that  hear  in  charity, 
Shall  not  cease  to  live  and    feel,  though    flesh    must    see 

corruption, 
For  tlie  prison-gates  of  matter  shall  be  broken,   and    the 

shackled  soul  go  free, 
Free  for  good  or  ill,  to  satisfy  its  appetite /oreuer; — 
Forever — happy  fate,  to  ripen  into  perfection— /oreuer. 

*'Look  to  thy  soul,  O  man!  for  none  can  be  surety  for  his 
brother. 
Behold,  for  heaven — or  for  hell;  thou  canst  not  escape  from 

Immortality!"  Proverbial  Philosophy.    Tupper. 

"Infants  themselves,  as  they  bring  their  condemnation  into 
the  world  with  them,  are  rendered  obnoxious  to  punuhinent  by 
their  own  sinfulness,  and  not  by  the  sinfulness  of  another.  But 
though  they  have  not  yet  produced  the  fruits  of  their  iniquity, 
yet  they  have  the  seed  of  it  within  them;  even  their  whole 
nature  is,  as  it  were,  a  seed  of  sin,  and  therefore  cannot  but  be 
odious  and  abominable  to  God.^^ 

Institutes  IL,  1,  8.    John  Calvin. 
"  Man  has  a  body  and  a  soul.    The  body  dies.     The  soul  never 
dies.     The  souls  of  the  good  will  be  happy  in  heaven.     The 
souls  of  the  wicked  will  be  miserable  in  hell.     Scripture  Lea- 
sons.     Am.  Tr.  Soc. 

*'  Oh!  yet  we  trust  that  somehow  good 
Will  be  the  final  goal  of  ill. 
To  pangs  of  nature,  sins  of  will. 
Defects  of  doubt,  and  taints  of  blood; 
**  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
[Continued  on  next  right  hand  page.} 

14* 


822  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

the  walls  of  Jerusalem,  to  destroy  the  offal  of  the  city,  here  was 
the  worm  that  dieth  not,  and  the  fire  that  is  unquenched ;  em- 
blems of  destruction,  not  of  torment.  I  find  nothing  in  the 
New  Testament  to  warrant  the  terrible  opinion  that  God  sus- 
tains the  life  of  His  creatures  throughout  eternity,  only  that 
they  may  continue  in  sin  and  misery.  That  immortality  is  the 
gift  of  God  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that  man  is  mortal, 
and  must  put  on  immortality,  that  only  he  can  put  it  on  who 
becomes,  through  Christ,  a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature,  and 
so  an  inheritor  of  Him  '  who  only  hath  immortality,'  that  eter- 
nal life  is  life  eternal,  and  eternal  death  is  death  eternal,  and 
everlasting  destruction  is  destruction  without  remedy — this  is 
the  most  natural,  as  it  is  the  simplest  reading  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament."   Lyman  Abbott. 

**  The  immortality  of  the  soul  is  neither  argued  nor  affirmed 
in  the  Old  Testament."    Perowne. 

"  Eternal  fixity  and  duration  belong  only  to  those  who  are  in 
accordance  with  God."    Dean  Alfokd. 

"  Hope  in  death  can  only  spring  from  the  principle  of  Immor- 
tality, and  this  principle  has  no  root  save  in  Christ." 

Pkincipal  Tulloch. 

"If  there  be  one  blessing  more  than  another  which  the 
Scriptures  agree  in  ascribing  to  Christ  as  its  Author,  and  for 
which  the  believer  is  taught  that  he  is  wholly  indebted  to  re- 
demption IT  IS  IMMOIiTALITY."     De  BURGH. 

"Eternal  Life,  as  I  believe,  is  the  inheritance  of  those  who 
are  in  Christ.  Those  who  are  not  in  Him  will  die  the  Second 
Death  from  which  there  will  be  no  resurrection." 

K.  W.  Dale  d.d. 

"  It  seems  a  strange  way  of  understanding  a  law  which 
requires  the  plainest  words,  that  by  death  should  be  meant 
Eternal  Life  in  misery."     John  Locke. 

"  The  Bible  is  silent  on  the  point  of  an  absolute  and  uncon- 
ditional immortality  of  all  men."     Rev.  H.  H.  DoBNEY. 

"  Search  the  Bible  through  from  beginning  to  end,  and  you 
will  nowhere  find  sinners  addressed  as  immortal  beings." 

Rev.  Thomas  Davis. 

"  Christianity  treats  man,  not  as  immortal,  but  as  a  candidate 
for  immortality."     J.  Parker  d.d. 

"  My  mind  fails  to  conceive  of  a  grosser  misrepresentation  of 
language,  than  when  five  or  six  of  the  strongest  words  which 
the  Greek  tongue  possesses  signifying  destroy  or  destruction  are 
explained  to  mean  "  maintaining  an  everlasting  but  wretched 
existence.'     To  translate  black  as  white  is  nothing  to  this." 

Dr.  R.  F.  Weymouth. 
[Continued  on  next  left  hand  page."] 


THE   AIITTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  323 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die,"— Satan. 

Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete; 

**  Behold  we  know  not  any  thing; 

I  can  but  trust  that  good  shall  fall 
At  last— far  off — at  last,  to  all 
And  every  winter  change  to  spring. 

"  The  wish  that  of  the  living  whole 
No  life  may  fail  beyond  the  grave, 
Derives  it  not  from  what  we  have 
The  likest  God  within  the  soul  ?" 

In  Memoriam.    Tennyson". 

''The  Immortality  of  the  soul  is  a  fundamental  article  of  the 
Christian  System."     Dictionary  Edition  I848.    Noah  Webster. 

• 

"  The  soul  is  immortal — Now  this  is  a  foundation  truth,  upon 
tlie  removal  of  which,  religion  falls  to  the  ground."  Sermon, 
Matt.  10 :  28.    Kobekt  South. 

"  There  need  not  be  any  hesitation  in  reverently  declaring 
that  God  cannot  annihilate  a  moral  agent."     Ecce  Deus,p.  219. 

"  I  have  a  firm  conviction  that  our  soul  is  an  existence  of  in- 
destructible nature,  whose  working  is  from  eternity  to  eter- 
nity."    Goethe. 

''  Second  Death.  Death  and  Hell  are  to  be  cast  into  the  lake 
that  burneth  with  fire  and  brimstone;  that  is,  the  bodies  of  the 
wicked,  once  mortal  or  dead,  and  their  souls  united  together 
shall  be  shut  up  in  Tophet,  where  all  the  former  torments  of 
both  shall  be  summed  up  with  inconceivable  increase,  after 
which,  no  effect  of  the  Divine  curse  shall  remain  anywhere  but 
in  that  pit  of  endless  misery."  Brown's  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
edited  by  James  Smith. 

"  The  damned  shall  be  packed  like  brick  in  a  kiln,  and  be  so 
bound  that  they  cannot  move  a  limb,  nor  even  the  eyelid;  and 
■while  thus  fixed,  the  Almighty  shall  blow  the  fires  of  hell 
through  them  forever."     Isaac  Ambrose. 

"  God  has  revealed  it  to  be  His  will  to  punish  some  of  man- 
kind FOREVER.  You  know  not  but  you  are  one  of  them. 
Whether  you  will  be  saved  or  damned  depends  entiiely't)n  His 
will.  And  supposing  He  sees  it  most  for  His  glory  and  the 
general  good,  that  you  should  be  damned,  it  is  certainly  His 
will  that  you  should  be  damned.  On  this  supposition  then, 
you  ought  to  be  willing  to  be  damned,  for  not  to  be  willing  to 
be  damned  in  this  case  is  opposing  God's  will! "  Vol.  III.,  page 
145,  Works  of  Samuel  Hopkins  d.d. 

[Continued  an  next  rig  lit  hand  page.} 


824  THE    SCRIPTURAL  DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 
"  The  doom  of  the  wicked  is  everywhere  spoken  of  in  the 
Holy  Scripture  in  terms  which  imply  the  obliteration  of  their 
entire  being  and  existence."     Rev.  W.  Ker. 

"  Throughout  the  Epistles  there  is  not  a  single  passage  which 
could  justify  the  assertion  that  the  lost  soul  shall  forever  con- 
tinue to  exist  in  torment.' '    Edward  F.  Litton. 

"Paul,  Teter,  John,  James,  and  Jude  all  agree  in  teaching 
that  destruction  is  the  last  judgment  of  God  upon  impenitence." 
Rev.  W.  Griffith. 

"  The  final  destiny  of  man  as  a  sinner  is  that  he  shall  be,  in  the 
end,  as  though  he  had  never  been."     Rev.  E.  VV.  Taunton. 

"  The  common  theory  of  Eternal  misery  involves  God,  His 
whole  administration  and  His  eternal  kingdom  in  the  deepest 
dishonor  that  the  mind  of  man  or  angel  can  conceive." 

Dr.  E.   liEECHER. 

"It  would.blanch  the  intellect,  reduce  the  mind  of  the  Chris- 
tian to  a  state  of  idiocy,  deprive  him  of  life,  were  he  adequately 
to  conceive  of  it."    Rev.  W.  Archer  Butler. 

"Were  I  compelled  to  stand  alone,  I  would  not  shrink  from 
declaring,  that  this  doctrine  of  Eternal  torment,  directly  im- 
pugns the  character  of  God."     Rev.  D.  Wardlaw  Scott. 

"It  seems  all  but  inconceivfible  that  when  God  is  all  in  all, 
there  should  be  some  dark  spot,  where  amid  endlessly  self- 
intiicted  suffering,  or  in  the  enhancement  of  ever-enduring 
hate,  rebel  hands  should  be  forever  raised  against  the  Eterual 
Father  and  the  God  of  Everlasting  love."     Bishop  Ellicott. 

"  I  acknowledge  my  inability  to  admit  this  belief ,  together 
with  a  belief  in  the  Divine  goodness."     John  Foster. 

"  We  would  express  our  conviction  that  the  idea  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  has  no  source  in  the  Gospel;  that  it 
comes,  on  the  contrary,  from  the  Fbitonists.  and  that  it  was  just 
when  the  Coming  of  Christ  was  denied  in  the  Church,  or  at 
least  began  to  be  lost  sijiht  of,  that  the  doctrine  of  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul  came  in  to  replace  that  of  the  resurrection." 
Hopes  of  the  Church.    J.  N.  Darby. 

"That  the  soul  is  naturally  immortal  is  contradicted  by 
Scripture  which  makes  our  immortality  a  gift  dependent  on  the 
Giver."    Richard  Watson. 

"  The  wicked  are  never  spoken  of  as  being  kept  alive  but  as 
forfeiting  life.''    Archbishop  Whately. 

"An  immortality  inherent  in  man  is  an  unscriptural  fig- 
ment."    W.  F.  Mortimer  d.d. 

"It    is    worthy    of    remark   that    the    doctrine  of  eternal 
torment  is   found  neither    in    the  Apostles  Creed  nor  in  uhe 
Nicene  Creed,  nor  in  the  two  principal  Confessions  of  Faith 
lContinu£d  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE   ANTI-SCEIPTUKAL  D0CTEI5TE.  825 

*'Ye  shall  not  surely  die.*^— Satait. 

"  With  ref^ard  to  men,  all  are  not  created  on  equal  terms;  but 
some  are  fore-ordained  to  eternal  life,  others  to  eternal  destruc- 
tion. And  accordingly,  as  each  man  has  been  created  for  one 
or  other  of  these  ends,  we  say  that  he  has  been  predestinated 
to  life  or  deaths  Institutes  of  the  Christian  Beligion,  Book  III., 
c.  21,  sec.  5.    John  Calvin. 

"  Is  it  intolerable  to  burn  part  of  thy  body  by  holding  in  the 
fire  ?  What  then  will  it  be  to  suffer  ten  thousand  times  more 
FOKEVEii  in  hell  ?  "     Saints  Best.     R.  Baxter. 

"  In  boiling  waves  of  vengeance  must  I  lie. 
Oh!  could  I  curse  that  dreadful  God  and  die  I 
Infinite  years  in  torment  shall  I  spend, 
And  never,  never,  never  at  an  end  ? 
Ah!  must  I  live  in  torturing  despair 
As  many  years  as  atoms  in  the  air  ? 
When  these  are  spent,  as  many  thousands  more 
As  grains  of  sand  that  crowd  the  ebbing  shore  ? 
When  these  are  gone,  as  many  yet  behind 
As  leaves  of  forest  shaken  with  the  wind  ? 
When  these  are  done,  as  many  to  eusue 
As  stems  of  grass  on  hills  and  dales  that  grew  ? 
When  these  run  out,  as  many  on  the  march 
As  starry  lamps  that  gild  the  spangled  arch  ? 
When  these  expire,  as  many  millions  more 
As  moments  in  the  millions  past  before  ? 
When  all  these  doleful  years  are  spent  in  pain. 
And  multiplied  by  myriads  again. 
Till  numbers  drown  the  thought,  could  I  suppos© 
That  then  ray  wretched  years  were  at  a  close, 
This  would  afford  some  ease;  but  ah!  I  shiver 
To  think  upon  the  dreadful  sound— forever  I 
The  burning  gulf  where  I  blaspheming  lie 
Is  time  no  more,  but  vast  eternity. 
Bound  to  the  bottom  of  the  burning  main, 
Gnawing  my  chains,  I  wish  for  death  in  vain. 
Just  doom!  since  I  that  bear  the  Eternal  load 
Contemned  the  death  of  an  Eternal  God." 

Gospel  Sonnets.    Ralph  Erskine. 

"Sinners  shall  suffer  the  most  grievous  torments,  both  in 
soul  and  l)ody,  and  without  Intermission  forevermore.  These 
torments  are  beyond  expression,  and  our  most  fearful  thoughts 
cannot  equal  the  horror  of  them."     Body  of  Divinity,  Boston. 

"  Suppose  that  we  saw  with  our  eyes  for  twenty  or  thirty 
years  together,  a  great  furnace  of  fire  of  the  quantity  of  the  whole 
earth,  and  saw  there  Cain,  and  all  the  damned  as  lumps  of  red 
fire,  and  they  boiling  and  leaping  for  pain  in  a  dumieon  of  Ever- 
lasting brimstone — and  the  black  and  terrible  devils,  with  long 
and  sharp-toothed  whips  of  scorpions  lashing  out  scourges  on 
lContimi€.i  on  next  right  hand  page.] 


826  THE    SCRIPTTJEAL  DOCTRINE. 

"  Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  viz.  :  the  otherwise  rigid  creed  of 
the  French  Reformed  Church,  and  in  the  thirty-nine  articles  of 
the  Anglican  Church.  And  we  believe  that  if  their  dogma  has 
been  handed  down  throughout  the  Protestant  Churches  it  is 
simply  as  an  Inheritance  from  the  errors  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  from  the  speculative  theories  of  Platonism.  If  we  examine 
the  writings  of  the  earlier  Fathers,  Barnabas.  Clement  of  Rome, 
Hermas,  Ignatius,  Polycarp,  Justin,  Theophilus  of  Autioch, 
Irenaeus,  and  Clement  of  Alexandria,  we  find  them  all  faithful 
to  the  Apostolic  doctrine  of  the  final  destruction  of  the  wicked. 
The  dogma  of  everlasting  torment  did  not  creep  into  the 
Church  until  she  yielded  to  the  influence  of  Platonic  philoso- 
phy."   E    Petavel  d.d. 

"  Imagine  numberless  creatures  produced   out    of    nothing 

.  .  .  .  delivered  over  to  torments  of  endless  ages,  without 
the  least  hope  or  possibility  of  relaxation  or  redemption. 
Imagine  it  you  may:  but  you  can  never  seriously  believe  it, 
nor  reconcile  it  to  God  and  goodness."  Dissertation  60. 
Bishop  Newton. 

"That  this  eternal  life  will  be  a  happy,  holy  life  is  certain; 
and  these  terms  are  used  to  show  its  na'ure.  But  the  term 
Eternal  is  used  to  show  its  duration.  No  other  life  will  be 
eternal  but  the  life  of  holiness  and  happiness  " 

Kev.  Gr.  R.  Kramer. 

"Immortal  life  is  possible  for  man;  but  some  alas,  impris- 
oned by  earthly  things,  will  never  find  it,  but  perish  in  their 
own  corruption."    Rev.  J.  D.  Wilson. 

"Immortality  is  a  blessing  to  be  sought,  not  a  birthright 
legacy."     Rev.  A.  A.  Phelps. 

"If  immortality  is  inherent  in  all  men,  it  is  very  plain 
that  it  cannot  be  '  the  gift  of  God '  to  the  obedient." 

Rev.  Alfred  Graham  d.d. 

"  The  Scripture  doctrine  of  Immortality  has  usually  been  dis- 
cussed as  a  matter  of  mere  speculative  belief  concerning  the 
destiny  of  the  lost.  This,  however,  is  only  the  reverse  side  of 
the  medal.  The  obverse  side — the  positive  statement  of  the 
doctrine,  tells  of  the  reciprocal  relations  existing  between 
Christ  and  His  Saints.  These  relations  are  based  on  the  pos- 
session of  a  common  life,  just  as  are  the  relationships  of  an 
earthly  family.  The  non-immortality  of  those  who  do  not 
possess  this  life  is  a  corollary  and  necessary  result  of  the  doc- 
trine, but  it  is  by  no  means  the  substance  of  the  doctrine  itself." 
William  R.  Hart. 

"  There  is  a  doctrine  which  degrades  man  and  dishonors  God> 
and  makes  the  entire  scheme  of  the  universe  a  disastrous 
failure;  a  doctriue  everywhere  current,  which  has  for  ages 
dominated  theology,  driven  multitudes  to  madness  or  atheism, 
corrupted  the  Gospel,  obscured  the  light  of  Revelation,  and 
iContinued  on  next  left  hand  j^cige.] 


THE  ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  827 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satait. 

them,  and  if  we  saw  our  nei|^libors— yea.  our  own  dear  children 
— swimming  and  sinking  in  that  black  lake,  and  heard  the  yell- 
ing, and  crying  of  our  young  ones — if  we  saw  this,  we  should 
not  dare  to  blaspheme  the  majesty  of  God."  Trial  and  Faith. 
Samuel  Rutherford. 

"Only  conceive  the  poor  wretch  in  the  flames.  See  how  his 
tongue  hangs  from  between  his  blistered  lips !  How  it  excori- 
ates and  burns  tlie  roof  of  his  mouth,  as  if  it  were  a  fire-brand  I 
Behold  him  crying  for  a  drop  of  water.  I  will  not  picture  the 
scene,  suffice  it  for  me  to  say  that  the  hell  of  hells  will  be  to 
thee,  poor  sinner,  the  thought  that  it  is  to  be  Forever.  Thou 
wilt  look  up  thereon  the  throne  of  God — and  on  it  shall  be 
written  Forever.  When  the  damned  jingle  the  burning  irons 
of  their  torments,  they  shall  say  Forever.  We  are  sometimes 
accused,  my  brethren,  of  using  language  too  harsh,  too  ghastly, 
too  alarming,  with  regard  to  the  world  to  come.  But  if  we 
could  speak  thunderbolts,  and  our  every  look  were  a  lightning 
flash,  and  our  eyes  dropped  blood  instead  of  tears,  no  tones, 
words,  gestures  or  similitudes  of  dread  could  exaggerate  the 
awful  condition  of  a  soul  which  has  refused  the  Gospel,  and  is 
delivered  over  to  justice."    Spurgeon. 

*'  Forever  harassed  with  a  dreadful  tempest,  they  shall  feel 
themselves  torn  asunder  by  an  angry  God,  and  transfixed  and 
penetrated  by  mortal  stings,  terrified  by  the  thunderbolts  of 
God.  and  broken  by  the  weight  of  His  hand,  so  that  to  sink  into 
any  gulf  would  be  more  tolerable  than  to  stand  for  a  moment 
in  these  terrors."     John  Calvin. 

"As  the  souls  of  heretics  are  hereafter  to  be  eternally 
burning  in  hell,  there  can  be  nothing  more  proper  than  for  me 
to  imitate  the  Divine  vengeance  by  burning  them  on  earth." 
Queen  Mary  as  quoted  by  Bishop  Burnet. 

"  The  bodies  of  the  damned  will  be  salted  with  fire,  so  tem- 
pered and  prepared  as  to  burn  the  more  fiercely,  and  yet  never 
consume."    John  VVhitaker. 

"  The  world  will  probably  be  converted  into  a  great  lake  or 
liquid  globe  of  fire, — a  vast  ocean  of  fire,  in  which  the  wicked 
shall  be  overwhelmed,  which  will  always  be  in  tempest  in  which 
they  shall  be  tost  to  and  fro.  having  no  rest  day  or  night,  vast 
waves  or  billows  of  fire  continually  rolling  over  their  heads,  of 
which  they  shall  forever  be  full  of  quick  sense  within  and 
without:  their  heads,  their  eyes,  their  tongues,  their  hands, 
their  feet,  their  loins  and  their  vitals  shall  forever  be  full  of  a 
glowing,  melting  fire,  fierce  enough  to  melt  the  very  rocks  and 
{Continued  on  next  right  Imnd  page.} 


S28  THE   SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

'^Thou  Shalt  surely  die."-JEHovAff. 

broujQjlit  fearful  discredit  upon  the  ineffable  character  of  our 
Father  in  heaven :  namely  the  doctrine  that  all  souls  are  death- 
less."   William  Leask  d.d. 


"  Paganism  taught  immortal-soulism  before  Christ  or  Moses 
or  Abraham.  Satan  taught  it  in  Eden.  It  cannot  be  true,  else 
it  would  be  incorrect  to  say  that  '  Life  and  immortality  are 
brought  to  light  in  the  Gospel."    D.  H.  Chase  ll.d. 


*•  The  world  contains  a  harvest  of  innumerable  human  be- 
ings, some  of  whom  allow  themselves  to  follow  the  perishable 
destiny  of  animal  life,  while  others  prepare  for  a  superior  life." 
Charles  Lambert. 


"  If  the  soul  cannot  perish  after  the  manner  of  things  com- 
pared according  to  gwaniiit/,  i.  e.,  by  division,  it  remains  subject 
to  the  condition  of  things  compared  according  to  quality;  in 
other  words,  it  is  capable  of  increasing  and  decreasing  by  de- 
grees in  all  its  properties  and  manifestations  whatever.  It  can 
therefore  undergo  gradual  diminution,  and  pem/i  at  ias£  6?/  ex- 
Unction.'^    Charles  Kenouvieb. 


*'  Restore  the  true  doctrine  of  immortality  and  you  will  have 
4ie  most  potent  weapon  ever  forged  for  the  defeat  of  that 
Nationalism  and  its  twin  Agnosticism  which  are  eating  the 
vitals  out  of  our  modern  Christianity."    M.  W.  Strang. 


"I  am  quite  sure  that  the  common  opinion  about  this 
doctrine  of  immortality  is  not  derived  from  Christian  origin, 
but  from  the  dogmas  of  Greek  philosophy  which  made  God  and 
the  world  equals,  and  naturally  would  find  the  source  of  divine 
and  immortal  life  in  nature,  especially  in  the  nature  of  man. 
The  Gospel  teaching  us  that  there  is  no  life  except  from  God's 
will,  compels  us  to  think  that  there  can  be  no  Everlasting  life, 
but  only  in  God,  and  in  those  natures  that  are  got  from  Him." 
Professor  Hermann  Schultz. 


**  Since  I  have  reached  and  rested  in  the  conclusion  that  the 
ultimate  doom  of  the  impenitent  is  death,  and  not  eternal  life 
in  agony,  a  great  black  cloud  seems  to  have  rolled  away  from 
the  face  of  God,  and  I  see  Him,  not  only  as  my  loving  Father, 
but  as  the  loving  Father  of  all  His  creatures." 

Prof.  Clement  M.  Butler  d.d. 
IContimied  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE    ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINTE.  329 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die.''— Satan. 

elements;  and  also  they  shall  eternally  be  full  of  the  most 
quick  and  lively  sense  to  feel  the  torments;  not  for  one  minute, 
nor  for  one  day,  nor  for  one  age,  nor  for  two  agos,  nor  for  a 
hundred  years,  nor  for  ten  thousands  of  millions  of  ages,  one 
after  another,  but  forever  and  ever,  without  any  end  at  all,  and 
never,  never  to  be  delivered." 

Sermon  Vol.  VII.,  p.  166,    Jonathan  Edwards. 

"  There  is  within  us  an  immortal  spirit.  We  die  to  those 
around  us,  indeed,  when  the  bodily  frame,  which  alone  is  the 
instrument  of  communication  with  them,  ceases  to  be  the  in- 
strument, by  the  absence  of  the  mind  which  it  obeyed.  But 
though  the  body  molders  into  earth,  that  spirit,  which  is  of 
pure  origin,  returns  to  its  purer  Source."  Lectures  on  the  Phil- 
osophy of  the  human  mind.    Thomas  Brown. 

Young  in  his  description  of  the  achievements  of  man  on  earth, 

exclaims — 
— *'  Look  down  on  earth.    What  seest  thou  ? 

.     .     Immortals,  have  been  here 
Could  less  than  souls  immortal  this  have. done  ?  " 

Night  Thoughts.    Night  Sixth.    Young-. 

"And  lastly.  Eternal  death  fills  both  body  and  soul  with 
most  intense  pain,  and  the  highest  torment  and  ansuish  which 
can  be  received  within  a  created,  finite  capacity.  All  the  woes, 
griefs,  and  terrors  which  humanity  can  labor  under,  shall  then, 
as  it  were,  unite  and  really  seize  upon  the  soul  at  once. — Surely 
a  bed  of  flames  is  but  an  uneasy  thing  for  a  man  to  roll  himself 
upon  to  all  eternity  I  The  suffering  which  shall  attend  this 
estate,  no  tongue  can  express,  no  heart  can  conceive.  Pain 
shall  possess  the  body;  horror,  agony  and  despair  shall  rack  the 
mind;  so  that  the  whole  man  shall  be  made  the  receptacle  and 
scene  of  misery,  the  tragical  scene  for  vengeance  to  act  its 
utmost  upon,  and  to  show  how  far  a  creature  is  capable  of  being 
tormented,  without  the  loss  of  His  being!  the  continuance  of 
which,  under  these  circumstances,  is  but  a  miserable  privilege, 
and  would  gladly  be  exchanged  for  annihilation.  For  every 
lash  which  God  then  gives  the  sinner  shall  be  with  a  scorpion  ; 
every  pain  which  he  inflicts  shall  be  more  eager  than  appetite, 
more  cruel  than  revenge;  every  faculty,  both  of  soul  and  body, 
shall  have  its  distinct,  proper,  and  peculiar  torment  applied  to  it, 
and  be  distinctly  struck  there,  where  it  has  the  quickest,  the 
tenderest,  the  sharpest  sense  of  every  painful  impression." 
Sermon  on  the  Wages  of  Sin.    Robert  South. 

"  If  a  man  were  condemned  to  lie  still,  or  to  lie  in  bed  in  one 
posture,  without  turning,  for  seven  years  together,  would  he  not 
buy  it  off  with  the  loss  of  all  his  estate?  If  a  man  were  put 
upon  the  rack  for  every  day  for  three  months  together  (supposo 
him  able  to  live  so  long),  what  would  he  not  do  to  be  quit  of 
his  torture?  Would  any  man  curse  the  king  to  his  face  wer^  he 
IContinued  on  next  right  hand  page.1 


830  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

**I  know  of  no  subject  that  so  magnifies  Christ.  How  it 
exalts  His  power,  wisdom  and  raaje»ty.  God  gave  to  us  Eternal 
Life,  and  this  life  is  in  His  Son.  Redemption  in  this  sense  is  a 
thousand  times  greater  than  that  which  merely  saves  an  immor- 
tal soul  from  sin  and  misery.  It  bestows  the  inestimable  boon 
of  Life,  as  well  as  pardon  and  bliss.  This  view  gives  a  new 
meaning  to  the  grand  old  coronation  hymn, 'All  hail  the  power,* 
etc.  To  me  it  gives  a  new  power  in  preaching.  It  is  like  stand- 
ing on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration  rather  than  on  Golgotha, — 
it  is  Life  instead  of  death,  glory  instead  of  shame." 

C.  R.  Hendrickson  d.d. 

"  This  doctrine  (of  immortality  in  sin  and  misery),  more 
than  anything  else  in  religious  teaching,  is  accountable 
for  the  open  infidelity  and  the  secret  unbelief  th^it  pre- 
vail. It  represents  the  Bible  as  absolutely  committed  to  some- 
thing utterly  incredible.  It  blots  out  the  light  that  should 
lead  to  God.  It  hinders  the  conversion  of  the  world.  The 
thoughtful  among  the  more  civilized  nou-christian  nations 
reject  Christianity  at  once,  on  account  of  it.  Missionaries  go 
out  to  preach  it,  and  are  stopped  in  their  work  by  misgivings, 
until  they  can  see  their  way  to  renounce  it  as  some  are  doing. 
At  home,  in  very  many  cases,  the  impossibility  of  preaching 
eternal  punishment  often  makes  the  preacher  altogether  silent 
as  to  that  tribulation  and  anguish  which  will  assuredly  be  the 
portion  of  every  man  who  persists  in  doing  evil."  Lecture  on 
Tennyson^s  ^*  Despair.^*    Thomas  Walker  Esq.,  London, 

''Such  is  the  horror  arising  from  the  prevalent  creed,  that  it 
is  seldom  applied  either  to  living  multitudes,  or  to  to  dead  rela- 
tions. A  hopeful  case  is  made  out  for  almost  every  one  who 
dies,  in  direct  opposition  to  (Christ's  words,  that  destruction  is 
certain  for  all  except  those  who  "  hear  His  sayings  and  do  them." 
The  effect,  moreover,  of  the  existing  opinion  is  to  lower  the 
Standard  of  Morality  to  Zero;  since  the  hell  believed  in  is  too 
dreadful  for  all  except  gigantic  offenders.  Thus  Christ's  words 
on  "wrestling  to  enter  into  life,"  become  practically  inopera- 
tive. The  masses  harden  themselves  in  wickedness,  and  Christ- 
ians deliberately  set  aside  the  Lord's  lesson  on  the  *  fewness  ' 
of  the  saved."    Life  in  Christ.    Rev.  Edward  White. 

*'  Nowhere  in  the  Word  of  God  is  immortality  ascribed  to  un- 
believers. In  the  only  four  passages  in  which  the  term  occurs  it 
is  once  mentioned  as  the  object  patiently  sought  for  by  all  who 
know  and  obey  the  truth  (Rom.  2:  7),  in  another  place  as  the 
special  bestowmeut  upon  the  ''called  of  God,"  according  to  His 
purpose  (2  Tim.  1:9,  10);  instill  another  it  is  promised  at  the 
resurrection  to  all  who  "  bear  the  image  of  Christ  "  (1  Cor.  15: 
51-54) ;  and  finally,  it  is  named  as  essentially  belonging  to  God 
alone  (1  Tim.  6:  Iti).  I  think  every  intelligent  Bible  scholar  in 
Christendom  will  indorse  the  accuracy  of  this  state mciit.  Hea- 
theu  philosophers  have  taught,  and  modern  poets  have  sung  the 
IContinued  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


THE    ANTI-SCEIPTUEAL    DOCTRINE.  331 

**  Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

Btire  to  have  both  his  hands  burned  off,  and  to  be  tormented 
•with  torments  three  years  together?  Would  any  man  in  his  wita 
accept  of  a  hundred  pounds  a  year,  for  forty  years,  if  he  were 
sure  to  be  tormented  in  the  Are  for  the  next  hundred  years 
together,  without  intermission?  Think  then  what  a  thousand 
years  may  signify;  ten  ages;  the  ages  of  two  empires.  But 
this  account,  I  must  tell  you  is  infinitely  short. — A  thousand 
years  is  a  long  time  to  be  in  torment;  we  find  a  fever  of  one  and 
twenty  days  to  be  like  an  age  in  length;  but  when  the  duration 
of  an  intolerable  misery  Uforever  in  the  height,  and  forever  in 
beginning,  and  ten  thousand  years  have  spent  no  part  of  its 
term,  but  it  makes  a  perpetual  efflux,  and  is  like  the  center  of 
a  circle  which  ever  transmits  lines  to  the  circumference;  this  is 
a  consideration  so  sad,  that  the  horror  of  it,  and  the  reflection 
upon  its  abode  and  duration,  make  a  great  part  of  the  hell;  for 
hell  could  not  be  hell  without  the  despair  of  accursed  souls ;  for 
any  hope  were  a  refreshment  and  a  drop  of  water,  which  would 
help  to  allay  those  flames,  which  as  they  burn  intolerably,  so 
they  must  burn  forever."  Sermon  on  the  Foolish  Exchange. 
Jekemy  Taylob 


*♦  Think  now,  O  sinner,  what  shall  be  thy  reward  when  thou 
shalt  meet  thy  Judge?  How  shall  the  adulterer  satisfy  lust 
when  he  lies  on  a  bed  of  flames?  The  swearer  shall  have 
enough  of  wounds  and  blood  when  the  devil  shall  torture  bis 
body  and  rack  his  soul  in  hell.  The  drunkard  shall  have  plenty 
of  his  cups  when  scalding  lead  shall  be  poured  down  his  throat, 

and  his  breath  draw  flames  of  lire  instead  of  air 

Oh!  what  a  bed  is  this!  no  feathers,  but  fire;  no  friends 
but  furies;  no  ease  but  fetters;  no  daylight  but  dark- 
ness; no  clocks  to  pass  the  time  away,  but  endless  eternity; 
fire  eternal  always  burning,  and  never  dying.  Oh!  who  can 
endure  everlasting  flame?  It  shall  not  be  quenched  night  nor 
day;  the  smoke  thereof  shall  go  up  forever  and  ever.  The 
wicked  shall  he  crowded,  together  like  bricks  in  a  fiery  furnace. 
.  .  What  woes  and  lamentations  shall  be  uttered  when  devils 
and  reprobates  and, all  the  damned  crew  shall  be  driven  into 
hell  never  to  return !  Down  they  go,  howling,  shrieking,  and 
gnashing  their  teeth.  .  .  What  wailinsr,  weeping,  roaring, 
yelling,  fining  both  heaven,  earth  and  hell!"  Sermon  on  the 
Judgment.    Ebenezeb  Ebskine. 


"  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  taught  eternal  torment.  I  do 
not  accept  it  on  his  authority. — When  the  stiffened  body  goes 
down  to  the  tomb,  sad,  silent,  remorseless — I  feel  there  is  no 
death  for  the  man.  That  clod  which  yonder  dust  shall  cover,  is 
not  my  brother.  The  dust  goes  to  its  place,  man  to  his  own.  It 
IContinued  an  next  right  Jutndpage.'] 


o32  THE   SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 
universal  immortality  of  man,  without  regeneration  ;  but  surely 
with  Christians  at  least,  that  ought  not  to  weigh  against  the 
plain  declarations  of  God,  especially  as  it  was  Satan  himself 
who  first  proclaimed  the  same  stupendous  lie,  in  the  garden  of 
Eden,  when  he  said  to  the  woman,  'Ye  shall  not  surely  die,* 
after  God  had  explicitly  declared  '  you  shall.' "  Lay  Sermons 
by  J.  F.  Graff. 

''  We  conclude,  therefore,  that  the  Fh'st  death  puts  an  end  to 
the  life  of  the  body ;  the  Second  death  consists  chiefly  in  the 
destruction  of  the  soul."     E.  Petavel  d.d. 

"  It  is  only  a  metaphysical  quibble,  when  it  is  objected  that  it 
is  impossible  for  anything  that  exists  to  suffer  absolute  destruc- 
tion ;  for  we  do  not  talk  of  absolute  destruction,  or  destruction 
of  substance,  but  are  only  saying,  that  the  organized  creature 
called  man,  being  a  sinner  will  be  dissolved  or  perish  under  the 
punitive  infliction  of  God's  wrath."    J.  H.  Chambeblin. 

"  Is  it  so  very  dreadful  a  thought  that  there  is  really  no  im 
mortality  for  man  in  sin — no  immortality  for  him  at  all  except 
in  Christ."     J.  M.  Denniston. 

"  That  a  creature  must  exist  forever,  whether  God  wills  it  or 
not — that  God  can  give  life  to  a  creature,  but  is  unable  to  with- 
draw the  life  He  gave, — that  He  created  a  soul,  but  is  unable  to 
let  it  drop  out  of  existence,  is  such  a  monstrous  absurdity,  that 
it  may  well  bear  away  the  palm  from  all  other  absurdities." 
I.  Jennings. 

"  But  in  our  time  another  idea  is  being  advanced  into  promi- 
nence in  relation  to  this  matter,  and  made  a  test  of  orthodoxy 
on  the  subject— an  idea  which,  I  venture  to  say,  is  beyond  all 
expression,  the  wildest  absurdity  that  could  be  broached  in  the 
name  of  sound  doctrine.  I  allude  to  the  notion  that  God  will 
sustain  in  existence  to  all  eternity,  creatures,  the  sole  end  of 
whose  existence,  has  become  active,  implacable,  and  unchange- 
able hostility  to  Himself.  If  there  is  one  conception  in  the 
whole  field  of  human  thought  more  monstrous  than  another,  it 
seems  to  me  to  be  that  conception.  I  look  upon  this  eternity  of 
sinning,  as  the  heresy  of  all  heresies,  because  it  contradicts  and 
contravenes  every  other  conceivable  truth  in  its  deepest  es- 
sence and  ground." 

Everlasting  Punishment.    Rev.  Fergus  Ferguson. 

"  In  regard  to  the  penalty  of  sin,  I  believe  in  the  Scriptural 
doctrine,  that  *  the  wages  of  sin  is  death,'  but  I  do  not  believe 
that  '  death '  means  what  the  Westminster  Confession  says  it 
means— existence  in  unspeakable  torment  both  of  soul  and 
body  in  hell, /or ever." 

Statement  under  trial  for  heresy  of  David  Maceae. 

"  The  doctiine  that  the  very  object  of  the  Incarnation  is  to 
immortalize  mankind,  furnishes  the  vertebral  column,  so   to 

IContiniied  on  next  left  Jiand  page.} 


"the  anti-sceiptural  doctrine.  333 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

is  then,  I  feel  immortality.  I  look  through  the  grave  into 
heaven.  I  ask  no  miracle,  no  proof,  no  reasoning  for  me.  I  ask 
no  risen  dust  to  teach  me  Immortality.  I  am  conscious  of  Eter- 
nal Life  !  "    Theodore  Parker. 

"  Death  is  not  an  end,  but  a  transition  crisis,  all  the  forms  of 
decay  are  but  the  marks  of  regeneration — the  secret  alembics 
of  vitality."    Chapijs^. 

"  All  great  men  find  eternity  affirmed  in  the  very  promise  of 
their  faculties."    Emerson. 

"  The  day  of  our  decease  will  be  that  of  our  coming  of  age; 
and  with  our  latest  breath  we  shall  become  free  of  the  universe. 
And  in  some  region  ol  infinity,  and  among  its  splendors  this 
earth  will  be  looked  back  on  like  a  lowly  home,  and  this  life  of 
ours    be   remembered   like  a  short  apprenticeship    to  duty." 

MOUNTFORD. 

"  A  man  cannot  doubt  but  that  there  is  a  God;  and  that  ac- 
cording as  he  demeans  himself  toward  Him,  He  will  make  him 
happy  or  miserable  /oreuer."     Tillotson. 

'*  Without  a  belief  in  personal  immortality,  religion  surely  is 
like  an  arch  resting  on  one  pillar,  like  a  bridge  ending  in  an 
abyss."    Max  Muller. 

"The  stars  shall  fade  away;  the  sun  himself 
Grows  dim  with  age,  and  Nature  sinks  in  years; 
But  thou  shalt  flourish  in  immortal  youth, 
Unhurt  amidst  the  war  of  elements, 
The  wreck  of  matter,  and  the  crash  of  worlds," 

Cato.    Addison. 
"One  short  sleep  past,  we  wake  eternally; 
And  death  shall  be  no  more;  death  thou  shalt  die." 

Donne. 
*'  Ah,  the  souls  of  those  that  die 
Are  but  sunbeams  lifted  higher." 

Longfellow. 
**  The  soul  of  man  alone,  that  particle  divine. 
Escapes  the  wreck  of  worlds,  when  all  things  fail." 

SOMERVILLE. 

"  If  then  all  souls,  both  good  and  bad,  do  teach 
With  gen'ral  voice  that  souls  can  never  die, 
'T  is  not  man's  flat'ring  gloss,  but  Nature's  speech, 
Which  like  God's  Oracles  can  never  lie." 

-•  Sir  J.  Davies, 

**The  soul  on  earth  is  an  immortal  guest. 
Compelled  to  starve  at  an  unreal  feast; 
A  spark,  which  upward  tends  by  Nature's  force; 
A  stream  diverted  from  its  parent  source; 
IContinued  on  next  right  hand page.'\ 


334  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

^'Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 
speak,  on  which   the  fabric  of  a  coherent    theology  can    be 
built."    Life  in  Christ.     E.  White. 

"  Human  Immortality  is  a  contradiction  in  terms;  for  what  is 
human  cannot  be  immortal,  and  the  moment  it  becomes  immor- 
tal it  ceases  to  be  human."     Robert  Ashcroft. 

''The  Christian  religion,  in  offering  duration  to  the  individ- 
ual is,  as  we  have  said  explicit  and  logical;  but  it  is  also  condi- 
tional. It  is  diflScult  for  the  mind  reared  among  the  familiar 
speech  with  which  most  of  us  dispose  of  this  subject,  to  be 
alertly  aware  of  ihe  fact  that  immortality  is  nowhere  proved  to 
be  a  natural  right,  yet  such  is  the  fact.  Like  suffrage,  immor- 
tality is  not  a  right,  but  a  privilege.  It  is  not  property,  but  a 
gift.  The  gift  is  offered  to  you  or  me  upon  conditions  which  we 
cnn  accept  or  deny  at  will.  The  Founder  of  our  religion 
makes,  we  may  say  that  He  constitutes,  the  conditions.  Ever- 
lasting Life  is.  in  fact,  according  to  this  religion,  bestowed  by 
Jesus  Christ  upon  the  human  soul.  .  .  . 

"  The  conditions  of  immortality  wholly  refuse  to  rest  upon  the 
piers  which  hold  the  conditions  of  conquest  in  the  life  of  time. 
Brute  force  ceases  now  to  keep  its  relative  value  in  this  larger 
contest.  There  is  what  may  be  called  a  brute  force  of  the  mind, 
of  which  this  is  equally  and  terribly  true.  Sheer  intellect  lias 
no  greater  chance  at  everlasting  life  than  sheer  muscle.  Im- 
mortality is  not  promised  by  the  Creator  to  great  men.  Mere 
mind  holds  no  pHssport  to  Eternity.  There  is  no  'limited  ex- 
press '  to  Paradise  for  able  people.  Goethe,  for  being  Goethe  is 
none  the  more  likely  to  last  forever.  Frederica,  so  far  as  we 
can  see,  stands  quite  as  good,  or  a  better  chance. 

"  The  law  of  selection  would  seem  to  be  at  once,  severe  and 
delicate.  The  obscurest  m  )ther,  transmitting  a  pure  heart  to 
her  boys,  never  having  heard  of  protoplasm,  and  knowing  no 
philosophy  beyond  her  prayers,  may  enter  into  this  higher  con- 
tention with  an  equipment  which  the  discoverer  of  the  missing 
link  might  envy.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that  the  soul  of  a  felon 
might  survive  the  soul  of  a  prince  or  a  priest.  The  tests  of 
this  world  fail.  Fine  causes  and  finer  sequences  enter  the  list. 
Who  are  we  that  we  should  win  ?  What  is  our  standard  of  suc- 
sess?  What  the  temper  of  our  weapons?  .  .  .  The  stranger 
without  onr  gates. or  the  servant  under  our  feet  may  be  fighting 
for  a  soul's  life  where  we  are  fooling  with  it,  and  may,  therefore, 
be  better  worth  life,  and  so  the  more  likely  to  live.  For  law  is 
but  law,  and  spiritual  law  loses  nothing  of  its  grip  for  gain  in 
quality  and  holds  us  none  the  less  robustly  because  of  a  touch 
so  velvet."  North  American  Review,  June,  188^.  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps. 

"  The  Scriptural  doctrine,  as  we  have  felt  constrained  to  de- 
clare it  here,  removes,  we  believe,  a  great  stumbling  block  from 
the  path  of  believers.     We  are  no  longer  compelled  to  conceive 
IConiinued  on  next  left  hand  page.] 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE.  335 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die/'-SATAN. 

A  drop  dissevered  from  the  boundless  sea; 
A  moment  parted  from  eternity; 
A  pilofrim  panting  for  the  rest  to  come; 
An  exile  anxious  for  his  native  home." 

Hannah  Mookb. 

*'  The  more  we  sink  into  the  infirmities  of  age,  the  nearer  we 
are  to  immortal  youth.  All  people  are  young  in  the  other 
world.  That  state  is  an  eternal  spring,  ever  fresh  and  ever 
flourishing.  Now  to  pass  from  midnight  into  noon  on  the  sud- 
den; to  be  decrepit  one  minute,  and  all  spirit  and  activity  the 
next,  must  be  a  desirable  change.  To  call  this  dying  is  an  abuse 
of  language."    Jeremy  Collier. 

•'  Not  all  the  subtilties  of  metaphysics  can  make  me  doubt  a 
moment  of  the  Immortality  of  Soul,  and  of  a  beneficent  Prov- 
idence. I  feel  it,  I  believe  it.  I  desire  it.  I  hope  it,  and  will 
defend  it  to  my  latest  breath."    Rosseau. 

"  I  am  fully  convinced  that  the  soul  is  indestructible,  and  that 
its  acitvity  will  continue  through  eternity.  It  is  like  the  sun, 
which  to  our  eye,  seems  to  set  in  night,  but  it  has  in  reality  gone 
to  diffuse  its  light  elsewhere."    Goethe. 

"  Is  death  the  last  sleep?  No,  it  is  the  last  final  awakening.'' 
"Walter  Scott. 

"It  is  not  I  who  die,  when  I  die;  but  my  sin  and  misery." 
Gotthold. 

"  What  is  human  is  Immortal."    Bulwer  Lytton. 

"  It  is  an  unspeakably  terrible  thing  for  any  one  to  be  lost. 
Even  to  those  who  suffer  least,  it  is  not  only  the  loss  of  all,  and 
a  horrible  lake  of  ever-burning  fire;  but  there  are  horrible  ob- 
jects filling  every  sense,  and  horrible  engines  and  instruments 
of  torture.  Nor  is  this  all.  Unmortified  appetites,  hungry  as 
death,  insatiable  as  the  grave,  are  so  many  springs  of  excruci- 
ating and  ever  increasing  agonies,  so  many  hot  and  stifling 
winds,  tossing  the  swooning  soul  on  waves  of  fire.  And  there 
will  be  terrible  companions;  and  every  one  utteriy  selfish,  ma- 
lignant, fierce  and  devilish.  There  will  be  terrible  sights  and 
sounds.  Fathers  and  sons,  pastors  and  people,  husbands  and 
wives,  brothers  and  sisters,  with  swollen  veins  and  bloodshot 
eyes,  straining  toward  each  other's  throats  and  hearts.  Upon 
such  an  assembly,  God,  who  is  of  purer  eyes  than  to  behold 
iniquity,  cannot  look  but  with  utter  detestation.  His  face  shall 
be  red  in  His  anger.  His  eyes  shall  not  pity,  nor  shall  His  soul 
spare  for  their  crying.  The  day  of  vengeance  is  in  His  heart. 
It  is  what  His  heart  is  set  upon.  He  will  delight  in  it.  He  will 
tread  that  rebel  crew  in  His  anger,  and  trample  them  in  His 
fury,  and  will  stiiin  His  raiment  with  their  blood.  The  cup  of 
the  wine  of  His  fierce  wrath  shall  contain  no  mixture  of  mercy. 
All  this,  and  more  and  worse  do  the  Scriptures  declare;  and  that 
[^Continued  on  next  right  hand  page.] 


336  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

of  God  as  possessing  two  different  natures  ;  on  earth  tender 
and  beneficent,  even  repaying  man's  ingratitude  and  wicked- 
ness by  His  mercies;  but  beyond  the  tomb,  unmoved  by  the 
endless  tortures  and  excruciating  pains  of  His  enemies.  We 
read  with  horror  the  stories  of  the  Inquisition,  or  the  relation 
of  the  conquest  of  Mexico  b^  the  Spaniards;  of  the  Emperor 
Montezuma  broiled  on  a  gridiron  over  a  slow  fire;  of  the  men 
tortured  and  driven  mad  by  drops  of  wat^r  falling  day  aiid 
night  upon  their  foreheads;  but  what  are  these  agonies  of  a 
few  days  or  hours,  hideous  and  revolting  as  they  may  be,  in 
comparison  with  a  scorching  fire,  which  after  millions  of  ages, 
shall  have  only  begun  its  work?  "    tilrucjgle  for  Eternal  Life. 

E.  Pktavel. 

"  No  man  can  deny  that  God  is  able  to  destroy  what  He  was 
able  to  create.  No  man  can  deny  that  God  had  a  power  to 
choose  whether  He  would  inflict  death  upon  the  sinner,  or  an 
endless  life  of  agony.  Which  would  He  choose,  the  gentler  or 
the  more  fearful  doom?  Will  you  say  the  latter?  Why? 
There  must  be  a  reason.  Is  it  to  please  Himself?  He  repudi- 
ates this  kind  of  character  (Ezek.  18:  28).  Is  it  to  please  His 
angelic  or  redeemed  creation?  They  are  too  like  Himself  to 
take  pleasure  in  such  a  course.  Did  no  pity  visit  the  Creator's 
bosom?  They  would  look  up  in  His  face  aud  plead  for  mercy. 
Is  it  to  terrify  from  sin?  To  terrify  whom?  Not  the  lost; 
they  are  handed  over  forever  to  blasphemy  and  evil.  Is  it  then 
to  terrify  the  unfallen,  and  preserve  them  from  sin?  Would  it? 
What  is  sin  ?  Is  it  not  pre-eminently  alienation  from  God  f 
What  would  alienate  from  Hira  so  completely  as  the  sight  or 
the  knowledge  of  such  a  hell  as  TertuUian  taught?  Pity, 
horror,  anguish  would  invade  every  celestial  breast.  Just  fancy 
a  criminal  with  us.  He  has  been  a  great  criminal.  Let  him  be 
the  cruel  murderer;  the  base  destroyer  of  woman's  innocence 
and  honor;  the  fiendish  trafficker  in  the  market  of  lust;  the 
cold-blooded  plotter  for  the  widow's  or  the  orphan's  inherit- 
ance. Let  him  be  the  vilest  of  the  vile,  on  whose  head  curses 
loud,  deep  and  many,  have  been  heaped.  He  is  taken  by  the 
hand  of  justice.  All  rejoice.  He  is  put  to  death!  No;  that  is 
thought  too  light  a  punishment  by  the  ruler  of  the  land.  He 
is  put  into  a  dungeon,  deprived  of  all  the  necessaries  of  exist- 
ence; tortured  by  day  and  by  night;  guarded,  lest  his  own  hand 
should  rid  him  of  a  miserable  life;  and  all  this  to  go  on  till 
Nature  thrusts  within  the  prison  bars  an  irresistible  hand,  and 
frees  the  wretch  from  his  existence. 

Now  what  would  be  the  eff"ect  upon  the  community,  of  such  a 
course?  ^he  joy  at  the  criminal's  overthrow  would  rapidly 
change  into  pity,  into  indignation,  into  horror,  into  the  wild  up- 
rising of  an  outraged  nation  to  rescue  the  miserable  man 
from  a  tyrant  worse  than  himself,  and  to  hurl  the  infamous 
abuser  of  law  and  power  from  his  seat.  And  this  is  but  the 
faintest  image  of  what  a  cruel  theology  would  have  us  believe 
^Continued  on  next  left  hand  page.] 


THE   ANTI-SCEIPTURAL   DOCTEINB.  337 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."-SATAN. 

preacher  who  hesitates  to  proclaim  it  has  forsworn  his  soul, 
and  is  a  traitor  to  his  trust.  And  all  this  shall  be  forever.  It 
shall  never,  never  end.  The  wicked  go  away  into  everlasting 
torment.  If  after  enduring  it  all  for  twice  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  years,  they  might  have  a  deliverance,  or,  at  least, 
some  abatement,  it  were  less  terrible.  But  this  may  never, 
never  be.  There  is  a  great  gulf  fixed,  and  they  cannot  pass 
from  thence.  Or  if  after  suffering  all  this  as  many  years  as 
there  are  sand  grains  in  the  globe,  they  miglit  then  be  delivered, 
there  would  be  some  hope.  Or,  if  you  multiply  this  sum,  too 
infinite  to  be  expressed  by  figures,  and  too  limitless  to  be  com- 
prehended by  angels — by  the  number  of  atoms  that  compose 
the  universe,  and  there  might  be  deliverance  when  they  had 
passed  those  abysmal  gulfs  of  duration,  then  there  would  be 
some  hope.  But  no  I  When  all  is  suffered,  and  all  is  past,  still 
all  beyond  is  Eternity."    Sermon  by  Rev.  Wm.  Davidson. 

*'When  thou  diest,  thy  soul  will  be  tormented  alone;  that 
will  be  a  hell  for  it;  but  at  the  day  of  judgment  thy  body  will 
join  thy  soul,  and  then  tbou  wilt  have  twin  hells,  thy  soul 
sweating  drops  of  blood,  and  thy  body  suffused  with  agony. 
In  fire  exactly  like  that  which  we  have  on  earth,  thy  body  will 
lie,  asbestos-like,  forever  unconsumed,  all  thy  veins  roads  for 
the  feet  of  pain  to  travel  on,  every  nerve  a  string  on  which  the 
devil  shall  forever  play  his  diabolical  tune  of  Hell's  Unutterable 
Lament."    Sermon^  Resurrection  of  the  Bead.    Spurgeon. 

"  His  soul  is  in  hell,  O  ye  children  of  men  I  While  ye  thus 
speak,  his  soul  is  in  the  beginning  of  those  torments  in  which 
his  body  will  soon  have  part,  and  which  will  never  die."  iSer- 
mouj  Neglect  of  Divine  Calls.    J.  Henry  Newman. 

**Hell — burning  high 
And  guarded  evermore  by  Justice  turned 
To  Wrath,  that  hears  unmoved,  the  endless  groans 
Of  those  wasting  within;  and  sees  unmoved 
The  endless  tear  of  vain  repentance  fall." 

Course  of  Time,  Book  X.    Pollock. 

"The  evil  portion  shall  be  continual  without  intermission  of 
evil,  no  days  of  rest,  no  nights  of  sleep,  no  ease  from  labor,  no 
periods  of  the  stroke,  nor  taking  off  the  hand,  no  intervals  be- 
tween blow  and  blow;  but  a  continued  stroke,  which  neither 
shortens  the  life,  nor  introduces  a  brawny  patience,  or  the  toler- 
ation of  an  ox,  but  is  the  same  in  every  instant,  and  great  as 
the  first  stroke  of  lightning;  the  smart  is  as  great  forever  as  at 
the  first  change,  from  the  rest  of  the  grave  to  the  flames  of  that 
horrible  buining.  .  .  .  And  yet  this  is  not  the  worst  of  it;  for 
as  it  is  continual  during  its  abode,  so  its  abode  is  forever;  it  is 
continual  and  eternal,"    Sermon,  2  Cor.  5: 10,    Jeremy  Taylor. 

"  Their  cursings  are  their  hymns,  bowlings  their  tunes,  and 
blasphemies  their  ditties."    Christopher  Love. 
{Continued  on  next  right  hand  pageJ\ 

15 


838  THE    SCRIPTURAL   DOCTRINE, 

•*  Thou  Shalt  surely  die."— Jehovah. 

of  our  Father  which  is  in  Heaven!  Nature  steps  in,  in  the  one 
case  and  says  there  shall  be  an  end.  Omnipotence,  in  the 
other,  puts  forth  its  mifijht  to  stay  all  escape,  Forever  and  for- 
ever! Millions  of  years  of  agony  gone,  and  yet  the  aj^ony  no 
nearer  to  its  close !  Not  one,  but  myriads  to  suffer  thus !  Their 
endless  cries  I  Their  ceaseless  groans!  Their  interminable  de- 
spair! Why,  heaven  and  earth,  and  stars  in  their  infinite  num- 
ber— all  worlds  which  roll  through  the  great  Creator's  space — 
would  raise  one  universal  shout  of  horror  at  such  a  course. 
Love  for  God  would  give  way  to  hatred.  Apostacy  would  no 
longer  be  partial,  but  universal.  All  would  stand  aloof  in  irre 
piessible  loathing  from  the  tyrant  on  the  throne,  for  a  worse 
thing  than  Manichseism  pictured  would  be  seated  there — fJie  one 
eternal  principle  would  he  the  principle  of  evil.^^  Duration  and 
Nature  of  Future  PunUhment,    H.  Constable. 

"Let  us  ask  the  advocates  of  endless  tortures,  whether  they 

are  exalting  God  by  their  doctrine What  interest  ought 

Christians  to  have  in  all  this,  that  they  so  zealously  try  to  prove 
it  of  their  Friend  and  Father?  How  can  it  exalt  Him  ?  Would 
an  earthly  friend  be  exalted,  if  but  a  millionth  part  were  attrib- 
uted to  him?  It  is  vain  to  say  that  He  is  not  connected  with 
this  torture.  The  bodies  of  men  could  not  be  exposed  to  the 
intense  and  constant,  and  endless  action  of  fire  and  yet  be  end- 
lessly kept  in  life  and  feeling  without  a  miracle.  The  law  which 
God  has  imprinted  on  Nature  is,  that  whatever  is  subjected  to 
the  action  of  fire  shall  come  to  an  end.  Men's  bodies  are  mate- 
rial, are  capable  of  being  acted  on  by  fire,  and  of  being  con- 
sumed by  it.  This  is  God's  own  natural  law,  which  He  refers 
to  again  and  again  in  His  Book;  and  if  human  beings  are  kept 
in  this  torture,  and  yet  preserved  alive,  it  must  be  by  the  imme- 
diate miraculous  interference  of  God;  and  if  He  does  this  at 
all,  it  can  be  only  for  the  purpose  of  torturing  them.  In  the 
ordinary  course,  they  would  be  consumed,  but  if  the  doctrine 
of  endless  pain  be  true,  He  keeps  thern  in  sensitive  life,  in 
order  to  punish  th6m.  Fancy,  if  you  can,  the  good  God  exer- 
cising His  miraculous  powers  on  purpose  to  torture  millions, 
billions,  trillions  of  His  poor  creatures;  and  thus  keeping  them 
alive  as  long  as  He  Himself  exists,  with  no  other  view  than 
endlessly  to  punish  them;  and  that  though  they  lived  only  a 
comparative  moment  of  time  and  did  only  those  things  which 
naturally  sprang  from  their  fallen  condition,  which  they  could 
not  help,  and  from  adverse  circumstances  which  they  could  not 
control.  .  .  Could  any  one  give  even  the  devil  a  worse  character 
than  this  ?  We  seriously  and  solemnly  ask  Christians,  especially 
the  teachers  among  them,  whether  they  can  really  think  that 
they  gloiify  and  exalt  God  by  attributing  to  Him  such  a  pro- 
cedure as  this?  As  for  ourselves,  we  must  humbly  and  ear- 
nestly, and  with  a  broken  and  contrite  heart,  supplicate  pardon 
from  Him,  that  we  have  ever  given  countenance  to  what  is  so 
IContinued  on  next  left  hand  page.} 


k 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTUBAL   DOCTRINE.  339 

"Ye  shall  not  surely  die."-SATAN. 

**  Immortality  I  This  is  the  crowning  jrift  of  the  human  soul, 
the  most  distinjruishing  glory  of  its  nature.  It  imparts  to  it  a 
value  whicli  no  language  can  express,  no  figures  compute.  The 
spark  of  intelligence  which  you  bear  about  in  your  bosom, 
which  kindles  in  that  eye,  glows  in  that  countenance,  and  by 
those  lips  gives  utterance  to  its  thoughts  and  emotions,  is  to 
survive  the  waste  of  time, — its  mysterious  lights  will  blaze  on 
high  when  suns  and  stars  shall  have  ceased  to  shine, — it  will 
look  down  from  its  throne  of  immortality  upon  the  tomb  of 
worlds."    Christian  Doctrine.    Hubbard  Winslow. 

"  Birth  into  this  life  was  the  death  of  the  embryo  life  that 
preceded  it,  and  the  death  of  this,  will  be  the  birth  into  some 
new  mode  of  being."    Rev.  Dr.  Hedge. 

"  Death   gives  us  sleep,  eternal    youth    and    Immortality." 

RlTCHER. 

"  There  is  no  finite  life  except  unto  death ;  no  death,  except 
unto  higher  life."    Bunsen. 

"  Death  supplies  the  oil  for  the  inextinguishable  lamp  of 
life."    Coleridge. 

"  There  is  no  death;  what  seems  so  is  transition; 
This  life  of  mortal  breath 
Is  but  a  suburb  of  the  life  Elysian, 
Whose  portal  we  call  Death." 

Longfellow. 

"The  soul  immortal  as  its  sire,  shall  never  die."  Montgom- 
ery. 

*'  I  feel  my  Immortality  oversweep  all  pains,  all  tears,  all  time, 
all  fears — and  peal  like  the  eternal  thunders  of  the  deep  into 
my  ears  the  truth — Thou  livest forever."    Byron. 

"  We  do  not  believe  immortality  because  we  have  proved  it; 
but  we  forever  try  to  prove  it,  because  we  believe  it."  James 
Martin  EAU. 

"  I  have  been  pastor  of  the  same  Church  thirty-five  years. 
During  all  this  period  I  have  said  to  my  Church  that  according 
to  the  teachings  of  Christ,  revealed  in  the  Four  Gospels: 

1.  There  are  two  conditions  of  existence  in  another  life. 

2.  One  of  them  is  a  conscious  state  of  unutterable  joy;  and 
this  state  is  endless. 

3.  The  other  condition  is  a  state  of  unutterable  suffering; 
and  this  state  is  endless. 

4.  There  is  as  much  reason  to  doubt  the  state  of  unutterable 
and  endless  joy  as  there  is  to  doubt  the  state  of  unutterable 
and  endless  suffering. 

5.  The  design  of  Christ  in  the  work  of  redemption  is  to  re- 
cover those  who  are  fearfully  exposed  to  a  state  of  unutterable 

[fiontinued  on  next  right  hand  page.} 


840  THE    SCRIPTURAL    D0CTEIN1E. 

"Thou  Shalt  surely  die  ^^— Jehovah. 
opposed  to  His  cliaracter  and  revealed  truth,  and  so  injurious 
to  His  cause  and  kingdom.  O  ye  teachers  of  the  Bible,  were 
you  to  attribute  this  deliberate,  this  malignant  hate  to  our- 
selves against  our  fellowts,  we  could  bear  the  stigma;  but  we 
will  no  longer  suffer  you  to  misrepresent  and  malign  the  char- 
acter of  our  Beloved,  our  best  Friend,  the  Source  of  all  good- 
ness and  love.  We  utter  our  solemn,  our  indignant  protest 
against  it.  If  we  could,  we  would  post  it  up  on  every  church 
and  chapel  door  in  the  realm,  and  at  every  coiner  of  every  street. 
We  would  proclaim  upon  the  house  tops  that  He  is  n(»t  the  God 
you  represent  Him  to  be.  We  would  try  to  rescue  His  character 
and  depict  Him  in  His  own  attractive  loveliness  and  goodness; 
and  not  in  that  garb  by  which  you  have  alienated  millions  from 
Him.  Those  who  love  Him,  do  so  iu  spite  of  this  part  of  your 
teaching. 

''  Why,  O  why,  will  you  alienate  man?  W'hy  will  you  persist 
in  thus  falsifying  the  character  of  your  lieavt*niy  Master?  You 
are  certainly  bearing  false  witness  against  God."  Man  Next  to 
God.     H.  S.  Wakleigh. 

"All  teaching  which  makes  the  soul  immortal,  by  virtue  of  a 
primitive  essence  is  concealed  pantheism."    Prof.  E   Naville. 

'•  After  all,  what  necessity  exists  for  our  becoming  immor- 
tal ?"     Dean  Bois,  Monfaubon. 

"Rash  the  attempt,  though  so  many  have  tried  it.  to  estab- 
lish the  soul's  immortality  by  arguments  founded  on  its  spir- 
itual nature."     Pkof.  Gaussen,  Geneva. 

"Those  only  can  be  sure  of  immortality,  who,  while  here  be- 
low, have  laid  hold  on  Eternal  Life." 

Pasteur  Gekold,  Strnsburf/. 

"Seeing  that  man  is  not  self-contained,  nor  holds  in  himself 
the  source  of  life,  but,  on  the  contrary,  fetches  everything  from 
God,  should  he  seek  to  separate  himself  from  that  Source  and 
fall  back  on  his  own  energies;  what  other  result  can  ensue  but 
that  his  personal  resources  being  speedily  drained  of  vitality, 
he  day  by  day  degenerates  toward  non-existence.  Behold  here, 
the  whole  question  of  life  or  death."     Father  (tRAtry. 

"  We  drink  the  life  of  God:  we  may  cease  to  do  so  by  a  vol- 
untary act,  and  carry  on  the  warfare  for  a  while  by  the  force 
remaining  to  us  from  our  creative  impulse.  That  force  will 
soon  be  spent,  and  our  isolated  life  will  be  falsehood  and  tor- 
ment. The  existence  which  man's  personal  liberty  has  enabled 
him  to  detach  from  the  Godhead,  expires  in  a  languishing 
agony."  ..Professor  Secretan. 


THE   ANTI-SCRIPTUEAL  DOCTRINE.  341 

"  Ye  shall  not  surely  die."— Satan. 

and  endless  suffering,  and  to  secure  to  them  a  state  of  unuttep- 
able  joy. 

6.  The  state  of  unutterable  and  endless  joy  in  the  untried 
future  will  be  entirely  the  result  of  a  certain  manner  of  living 
on  earth. 

7.  The  state  of  unutterable  and  endless  suffering  in  the  un- 
tried future  will  be  entirely  the  result  of  a  certain  manner  of 
living  on  earth. 

8.  The  present  life  is  of  God  the  only  state  of  probation,  and 
the  destiny  of  each  person  is  then  forever  fixed  of  him. 

Now,  have  I  during  my  ministry  of  thirty-five  years  uttered 
the  same  doctrines  which  Christ  uttered  ....  or  have  I  all  this 
period  been  bewildered  in  a  doctrinal  muddle  ?  If  all  this  while 
I  have  been  teaching  erroneous  doctrines,  I  certainly  would 
thank  some  person,  greatly  enlightened  by  the  Holy  Spirit  into 
the  Mysteries  of  Godliness  to  reveal  to  me  my  mistake."  Chris- 
tian Mirror,  Portland,  Me.,  May  S,  1884.  D.  Garland,  Con^ 
gregational  Minister, 

The  common  conception  of  death  is  a  great  illusion.  Indeed  it 
ought  not  to  require  any  very  profound  religious  faith,  but  a 
nimble  effort  of  good  sense  rather,  to  teach  a  believer  in  immor- 
tality that  death  is  not  what  it  seems  to  be.  The  tyrant  always 
wears  a  mask.  The  inherited  notion  of  it,  which  has  come 
down  to  us  through  ages  of  horror,  and  which  still  lives  in 
some  of  our  funereal  usages,  is  a  hideous  fiction.  We  speak 
but  a  truism  in  saying  that  death  never  throttles  the  real  man. 
It  is  one  of  the  commonplaces  which  still  are  immense  in 
meaning  that  that  which  thinks  and  feels  and  loves  and  hopes 
and  joys  death  has  no  more  to  do  with  than  it  has  with  God. 
Look  at  an  Egyptian  mummy:  is  that  a  man?  Yet  it  is  all 
that  death  has  to  boast  of.  Why  is  it  not  more  real  to  us  that, 
to  the  thought  of  God,  no  man  ever  dies?  To  His  mind  there 
is  no  death-bed,  no  dying  struggle,  no  glazing  eye,  no  grave. 
These,  as  we  think  of  them,  are  but  illusions  of  human  sense. 
The  real  man,  once  alive,  lives  on  forever.  That  thing  which 
we  weep  over  and  enrobe  tenderly  for  the  Iburial,  and  follow 
reverently  to  the  grave,  atid  there,  with  prayer  and  dirge,  cover 
from  our  eyes,  is  not  the  man  —  the  real  being  loved  and  lost. 
He  is  still  what  he  was  the  last  time  we  parted  with  him,  and 
bade  him  goodby.  He  has  only  passed  out  of  our  sight  for  a 
little.  Dyinff  is  a  transition  to  an  improved  state  of  beinff.  All 
nature  teaches  this.  Decay  is  but  the  process  to  new  nnd  bet- 
ter life. — The  Congreqationalist,  July  31,  1884.  "  The  Christian 
Idea  of  Death.''  Pkof.  Austin  Phelps,  d.d.,  Andover. 
[The  language  of  the  article  thrcmghout  asserts,  not  merely  the 
immortality  of  Christians  as  their  peculiar  inheritance,  but 
universal  Immortality,  without  regard  to  character,  and  very 
strongly  favors,  ajid,  indeed,  seems  to  teach,  universal  salvation, 
J.  H.  P.] 


HUMAN   IMMORTALITY. 


THE    TRADITIONAL    BELIEF     STATED 

BY  ONE  OF  ITS  MOST  ESTIMABLE  AND  ABLE  DEFENDERS, 
IN  A  FRIENDLY  LETTER  TO  THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE 

Unspeakable  Gift^ 
WITH  THE  AUTHOR'S  REPLY. 


Peesident's  Room,  College, 

August  14th,  1884. 
My  Dear  Mr.  Pettingell: 

The  book  came  duly  to  hand,  and  I  have  used  some  of  my 
vacation  leisure  to  give  it  a  full  and  careful  reading.  Its  style 
seems  to  me  quite  admirable,  clear,  strong  and  often  beautiful. 
The  treatment  of  the  theme  shows  the  fruit  of  long  and  devoted 
study,  in  one  line,  bending  everything  to  the  support  of  a 
peculiar  doctrine,  and  it  makes  out  quite  a  plausible  case:  yet 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  sound  reasoning.  You  speak  of  the  bias 
of  prejudice  in  favor  of  long  cherished  opinions.  As  I  read,  I 
think  I  see  the  bias  of  a  fondly  cherished  hohhy. 

I  cannot  undertake  to  review  the  book  or  to  go  into  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  question.  Enough  to  say  now  that  we  are  agreed 
in  regarding  Eternal  Life  as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ.  But  what  is  Eternal  Life  ?  As  I  read  my  Bible,  it  is 
simply  the  restoration  of  a  soul  lost,  already  dead  in  sin  through 
the  subjection  of  the  spiritual  and  immortal  part  of  our  nature 
to  the  material,  sensual  and  mortal  part.  Human  conscious- 
ness and  the  Bible  everywhere  recognize  the  distinction  be- 
tween the  physical  and  spiritual  man,  and  assume  as  a  fact  that 

843 


344  HUMAN   IMMORTALITT. 

the  soul  inbreathed  as  an  emanation  from  the  eternal  and  in- 
finite Spirit  can  never  die.  Tlie  great  question  of  our  probation 
here  turns  upon  restoring  the  Spirit  to  its  due  ascendency  over 
the  conduct  of  the  life  here.  The  Eternal  Life  viith  them  who 
are  Christ's  is  begun  here,  in  the  quickening  of  all  gracious 
spiritual  affections,  and  our  appeal  to  men  is  to  open  their 
souls  to  the  Life-giving  influences  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  terrors 
of  the  world  to  come  are  brought  in  to  enforce  that  appeal. 

Your  view  does  not,  to  my  mind,  relieve  at  all  the  dark, 
mysterious  problem  of  evil  and  suffering  in  a  world  created  and 
administered  by  a  benevolent  God.  The  mystery  I  cannot 
fathom.  The  Gospel  shows  the  heart  of  God  set  for  its  relief* 
and  this  is  its  glory.  May  we  both  know,  now  and  hereafter, 
the  fulness  of  its  power. 

Most  sincerely  yours, 


Philadelphia,  Pa.,  Aug.  20,  1884. 

Rev.  Dr.  ,  President  of College. 

My  Dear  Christian  Brother: — I  thank  you  for  your  favor 
of  the  14th  inst.,  and  highly  appreciate  the  kind  spirit  which 
characterizes  it.  I  am  thankful  that  you  have  taken  the  trouble 
to  give  mj'^  book  "a  full  and  careful  reading,"  especially  as  it  is 
not  in  harmony  with  your  own  views  of  truth.  What  you  say 
of  its  style  as  "  quite  admirable,  clear,  strong  and  of  ten  beau- 
tiful," and  of  my  treatment  of  the  theme  as  showing  "the 
fruit  of  long  and  devoted  study  in  one  line,"  etc.,  I  am  quite 
willing  to  accept  as  sincerely  said,  and  as  an  evidence  of  your 
good  judgment,  which  I  have  never  had  occasion  to  doubt;  for 
this  seems  to  be  the  unanimous  opinion  of  others,  as  J  am 
happy  to  know,  who  have  written  me  in  regard  to  it.  I  could 
only  wish  you  had  also  agreed  with  them  in  considering  the 
argument  as  not  merely  "very  plausible,"  but  as  actually  sound 
and  conclusive.  But  this  was  more  than  I  had  dared  to  hope. 
For  I  can  readily  see  how  difficult,  yea  almost  impossible  it  is 
for  any  man  of  your  religious  training  from  infancy,  and 
of  your  habits  of  thought,  and  of  your  high  standing  in  the 
religious  and  literary  world,  and  especially,  at  your  time  of 


HUMAN   IMMORTALITY.  345 

life,  to  admit  or  even  to  perceive  the  full  force  of  any  argu- 
ment, however  clear  and  strong  it  may  be,  that  is  leveled 
against  his  own  "long  cherished  opinions  "  and  life-long  teach- 
ing. The  "bias"  that  comes  from  early  religious  education, 
thoroughly  established  mental  processes,  and  public  committal 
as  a  theological  teacher, — to  s.iy  nothing  of  the  insidious 
power  of  the  great  Deceiver  against  which  the  Scriptures  so 
often  warn  us,  —  is  altogether  too  strong  for  poor  human 
nature  to  resist  and  overcome  without  Divine  aid.  I  verily  be- 
lieve —  as  one  of  my  correspondents  writes  —  that  nothing  but 
the  power  of  God's  Holy  Spirit  can  avail,  to  break  the  spell 
which  Satan  has  wroug/lit  upon  the  minds  of  men,  and  to  open 
their  eyes  to  the  truth  in  respect  to  the  mortal  nature  of  sinful 
man,  and  the  necessity  of  a  second  birth  from  above,  and  a  res- 
urrection from  the  dead  through  Jesus  Christ,  in  order  to  Eter- 
nal Life.  The  popular  philosophy  of  both  the  heathen  and  the 
Christian  world,  the  pride  of  man,  and  the  traditions  of  the  so- 
called  Christian  Church,  from  the  Third  Century  till  now  are 
more  directly  opposed  to  the  teaching  of  God's  Word  on  this 
point,  than  to  any  other  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures.  But  there 
is  no  one  doctrine  more  positively,  emphatically,  clearly  and 
uniformly  taught  throughout  the  whole  Bible,  and  especially  by 
Christ  and  His  immediate  followers,  than  this  one  cardinal 
truth,  that  death,  actual  death  and  destruction  is  the  final 
end  of  sin,  and  that  Eternal  Life  is  given  only  through  Jesus 
Christ  by  a  new,  supernatural  birth  and  a  resurrection  from  the 
dead. 

I  will  not  deny  that  I  am  under  a  "bias"  toward  this  doc- 
trine, but  you  must  allow  that  it  is  in  spite  of  the  influence  of 
early  religious  training,  professional  education,  habits  of 
thought,  and  of  opinions  once  fondly  cherished,  and  the  public 
advocacy  of  them.  It  is  a  new  "  bias  "  that  has  come  from  a 
diligent,  patient,  prayerful  study  of  God's  Word  — under  the 
guidance  of  His  gracious  Spirit,  as  I  trust,— with  a  single  desire 
to  know  what  it  really  teaches  on  this  question,  and  with  a  de- 
termination to  accept  of  it  however  contrary  it  may  be  found 
to  be  to  the  popular  philosophy  of  the  schools,  or  the  traditions 
of  a  corrupt  church,  or  my  early  prejudices  or  the  suggestions 
of  selfish  interest.  If  it  be  a  "hobby  fondly  cherished,"  it  is 
such  a  hobby  as  the  Apostle  Paul  confessed  to  when  he  said,  "  I 
determined  not  to  know  anything  among  you,  save  Jesus  Christ 
15* 


346  HUMAN   IMMORTALITY. 

and  nim  Crucified,"— Christ  the  only  hope  of  Eternal  Life  for 
dying  men. 

Of  course,  you  could  not,  as  you  say,  go  into  any  formal  dis- 
cussion of  this  question  in  your  brief  and  friendly  note;  but  I 
could  very  much  wish  that  you,  or  some  one  of  the  many 
Christian  scholars  who  hold  with  you,  could  b*^  persuaded  to 
take  the  trouble  to  discuss  it,  and  to  give  us  your  reasons  for 
rejecting  the  oft  repeated  declarations  of  Scripture,  that  death 
is  the  penalty  of  sin,  and  that  Eternal  Life  is  given  only  through 
Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour,  and  for  your  acceptance  of  the  oppo- 
site philosophy  of  the  heathen  world,  which  denies  all  this,  and 
asserts  that  immortality  is  the  natural  and  inalienable  inheri- 
tance of  all  men,  whether  sinful  or  holy,  and  that  all  the  chil- 
dren of  Adam  are  destined  to  an  Eternal  Life  of  bk'ssedness  or 
of  misery.  For  I  have  never  yet  seen  any  argument  to  estab- 
lish this  doctrine,  apart  from  the  authority  of  this  Anti-Chris- 
tian philosophy  and  the  ti-aditions  of  a  sophisticated  Church 
that  had  the  merit  of  being  even  "  plausible." 

Still  1  thank  jou  for  so  kindly  giving  me,  in  brief,  your  view 
of  the  case.  You  cannot  but  agree  with  me,  you  say,  "in  re- 
garding Eternal  Life  as  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ." 
Of  course  you  must,  for  this  cardinal  truth  is  too  conspicuously 
displayed  everywhere  on  the  surface  of  the  Scriptures  to  admit 
of  any  direct  denial  by  any  one  who  pretends  to  receive  them 
as  the  Word  of  God.  But  you  do  not  agree  with  me  ^i  believ- 
ing that  "Eternal  Life"  means  Eternal  Life;  for  this  would 
completely  upset  your  philosophy  as  regards  the  deathless 
nature  of  man ;  and  so  you  accept  of  a  new,  ethical,  so-called 
religious  sense,  which  this  philosophy  has  taught  you  to  put 
upon  these  plain  crucial  words,  which  acknowledges  them  to  the 
ear  but  denies  them  to  the  understanding.  And  this  you  have 
agreed  to  call  without  any  authority  whatever,  either  from  the 
Great  Teacher  himself  or  from  the  common  classical  usage  of 
His  day,  the  Biblical-sense  of  these  words. 

"  What  is  Eternal  Life  ?  "  you  ask.  In  truth,  what  is  it  but 
Eternal  Life  ?— a  life  without  end,  the  life  which  Christ  claims 
AS  His  own  peculiar  life,  and  which  He  promises  to  all  who  be- 
come united  to  God  through  Himself  ;  a  new  life,  ingeuerated 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  zoe  aidnios,  the  endless  life,  in  contra- 
distinction from  the  psuch  life  that  is  perishable  and  hastening 
to  its  end;  an  immortal  life  of  blessedness  and  joy  in  His  ever- 


HITMAN  IMMORTALITY.  347 

lasting  kingdom.  Why  should  our  Lord  and  His  inspired  dis- 
ciples make  such  repeated  and  constant  use  of  this  most 
emphatic  expression  "Eternal  Life"  if  nothing  more  were 
meant  than  a  change  of  character,  or  condition,  or  circumstance 
in  a  life  which  is  eternal  in  itself  whatever  its  character,  condi- 
tion or  circumstance  ?  Why  should  you  or  any  other  Christian 
man  consent  to  eliminate  from  this  most  clear  and  definite  ex- 
pression, Eternal  Life  of  Scripture,  its  main  vital  element 
and  accept  of  nothing  but  the  shell,  as  the  sum  of  this  precious, 
glorious  promise  of  your  Saviour  ?  What  authority  have  you 
but  that  of  the  great  Deceiver  himself  and  of  the  heathen 
philosopher  who  came  so  early  into  the  Christian  Church  to 
corrupt  its  simplicity,  and  the  tradition  of  the  Church  so  cor- 
rupted, for  robbing  Christ  of  His  chief  crown  of  glory  as  the 
Prince  of  Life  and  the  Giver  of  Eternal  Life  to  His  peculiar 
people  by  redemption,  and  for  placing  it  upon  your  own  head 
as  a  child  of  Adam  and  upon  the  heads  of  all  his  sinful 
posterity? 

"  Beware,"  says  the  Apostle  Paul,  referring  as  I  believe  to 
this  very  matter,  "lest  any  man  spoil  (make  spoil  of)  you 
through  philosophy  and  vain  deceit,  after  the  tradition  of  men, 
after  the  rudiments  of  the  world  and  not  after  Christ."  •'  I  fear, 
lest  by  any  means,  as  the  serpent  beguiled  Eve,  through  his 
subtilty,  so  your  minds  should  be  corrupted  from  the  simplicity 
that  is  in  Christ." 

Were  you  born  to  an  estate  that  had  been  mortgaged  to  its 
fullest  value  and  beyond,  or  to  one  that  had  been  utterly 
BQuandered  by  your  own  folly,  and  were  your  house  and  home 
about  to  be  sold  over  your  head;  and  were  some  kind  friend,  at 
his  own  expense,  to  pay  all  your  indebtedness  and  redeem  it 
for  you ;  and  beside  all  this,  were  he  to  rebuild  and  ref urnis  h 
the  old  homestead  in  greater  beauty  and  permanence  than  be- 
fore, and  freely  give  it  all  back  to  you,  it  would  be  but  a  poor 
and  meagre  acknowledgment  of  your  obligations  to  thank  him 
only  for  the  improvements  he  had  made  on  the  property,  but  as 
for  the  homestead  itself,  to  insist  that  it  rightfully  belonged  to 
you  by  natural  inheritance  and  had  never  been  forfeited.  Yet 
this  is  all  the  meed  of  honor  you  would  ascribe  to  that  infinite 
Friend,  who,  by  the  sacrifice  of  Himself,  has  redeemed  your 
life  from  destruction  and  now  offers  you  in  its  stead  a  new, 
better,  purer,  more  blessed  life,  a  deathless  life  like  His  own,  •  s 


348  HUMAN   IMMORTALITY. 

a  gift  of  free  grace.  You  cheerfully,  gratefully  acknowledge 
your  obligations  for  the  improvements  He  has  made  in  your 
life  and  its  surroundings;  but  as  for  the  life  itself,  it  had  never 
been  forfeited ;  it  was  your  own  by  the  indefeasible  right  of  in- 
heritance ! 

That  cunning,  crafty  old  enemy  of  God  and  man  would  fain 
have  us  believe  that  we  are  not  in  any  true  sense  whatever  re- 
deemed from  death  by  the  blood  of  Christ;  that  no  atoning 
Saviour  was  needed ;  but  only  a  holy  example  and  that  we  save 
ourselves  or  rather  make  ourselves  eternally  blessed  by  walking 
in  His  footsteps.  And  this  is  all  the  indebtedness  which  many 
who  call  themselves  Christians  are  willing  to  acknowledge. 
But  failing  in  this,  he  would  reduce  our  sense  of  obligation  to 
its  minimum, or  substitute  for  the  real  Gospel  "  another  Gospel 
which  is  not  another,"  which  construes  His  declarations,  "  I  am 
th«^  Resurrection  and  the  Life,"  **!  give  unto  them  Eternal 
Life,"  as  meaning,  not  what  they  express,  but  only  tliat  He  saves 
men  from  eternal  sin  and  misery, —  a  great  salvation  indeed, 
but  not  the  great  salvation  of  the  Gospel.  By  this  adroit 
change  he  prepares  the  way  for  the  skepticism  and  infidelity 
that  follow  close  in  the  track  of  such  an  emasculated  Gospel. 
For  thinking  men  will  not  believe, —  they  ought  not  to  believe, 
that  a  just  and  holy  God  will  perpetuate  the  lives  of  the  un- 
saved, in  a  state  of  hopeless,  helpless  sin  and  wretchedness 
without  end.  Revolting  in  horror  from  the  infinite  cruelty 
which  the  advocates  of  this  pseudo  gospel  charge  upon  their 
Heavenly  Father  and  assert  is  threatened  in  the  Scriptures, 
they  will  either  question  the  sincerity  and  trustworthiness  of 
His  Word,  or  else  believing  that  the  Scriptures  really  teach 
what  its  professed  expounders  declare,  they  will  reject  both 
the  Bible  and  the  God  of  the  Bible  as  unworthy  of  their  confi- 
dence and  love ;  or  else  they  will  endeavor  to  relieve  their  bur- 
dened hearts  and  encourage  their  waning  faith  by  some  fanci- 
ful scheme  of  a  post  mortem  probation,  or  of  purgatorial  atone- 
ment that  will  recover  all  sinners  at  last  from  so  dreadful  a 
doom.  In  any  case,  "  the  Word  of  God  is  made  of  noue  effect 
through  their  tradition,"  and  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed 
God  which  is  "  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of  God  to 
every  one  that  believeth,"  becomes  as  "an  idle  tale"  with 
lit^-^e  or  no  power  to  awaken  either  the  fears  or  the  hopes  of 
pe    ehing  men. 


HUMAN    IMMORTALITY.  349 

I  could  aj^ree  with  you  in  what  you  say  of  "  the  restoration 
of  a  lost  soul,  already  dead  in  [through]  sin,"  if  you  really 
meant  what  the  words  express;  for  the  Scriptures  describe 
sinners  as  " lost "  and  judicially  "dead"  through  sin,  and  as 
hastening  down  to  actual  death  and  destruction.  But  by 
"  death  "  you  no  more  mean  Deai^  than  by  "life"  you  mean 
actual  Life.  The  philosophy  of  the  deathless  nature  of  man 
that  required  you  to  change  the  meaning  of  the  one  term,  re- 
quires the  same  of  its  correlative.  You  can  give  no  more 
reason  or  authority  for  the  change  in  the  one  case  tlian  in  the 
other.  The  exigencies  of  your  false  position  require  you  to 
use  these  two  simple,  obvious  terms,  when  predicated  of  man — 
or  the  soul  of  man,  which  is  the  same  thing — in  a  sense  quite 
different  from  what  they  have  when  predicated  of  anything 
else  that  has  life.  You  mean  by  it  a  state  of  sin  and  alienation 
from  God,  for  you  go  on  to  say  that  it  is  "  the  immortal  part  of 
our  nature  "  and  that  "  it  can  never  die.'^ 

Here,  without  seeming  to  be  aware  of  it,  you  employ  the 
words  "dead"  and  "die"  in  two  opposite  senses,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  very  same  thing.  You  say  the  soul  is  "  dead  "  and 
then  again  "  it  can  never  die."  In  the  first  instance  you  employ 
it  in  what  you  are  pleased  to  regard  as  its  religious  or  Biblical 
sense:  in  the  latter,  in  its  ordinary  and  natural  sense.  What 
then,  let  me  ask  you,  do  you  understand  by  the  Second  death,  the 
penal  death  that  is  to  be  inflicted  upon  the  impenitent  after  the 
first  death  and  their  resurrection  to  judgment  ?  What  do  the 
prophets  and  apostles  mean  when,  warning  sinners  of  this 
death,  they  say  "  why  will  ye  die  ?  "  "  If  ye  live  after  the  flesh 
ye  ahall  die."  "  Sin  when  it  is  Jinished  bringeth  forth  death," 
etc.  They  cannot  mean  the  first  or  the  Adamic  death,  for  no  one 
can  escape  this.  They  cannot  mean  that  state  of  sin  and  alien- 
ation from  God  which  is  the  present  state  of  all  natural  men 
which  you  call  death,  for  they  refer  to  something  yet  to  come ; 
and  beside  this,  it  is  to  be  inflicted  upon  them  hereafter  as  a 
penalty  for  sin,  and  God  surely  d'^es  not  inflict  sin  and  alien- 
ation upon  men.  It  cannot  mean,  according  to  your  view,  actual 
death,  for  you  say  "the  soul  can  never  die."  Hence,  in  order 
to  maintain  an  apparent  agreement  with  the  Scriptures,  your 
scholastic  theology  has  been  obliged  to  invent  still  another 
meaning  to  this  word  death;  and  so  there  are  three  so-called 
Biblical  or  religious  senses  in  which  we  must  understand  it; 


350  HUMAN   IMMORTALITY. 

Thus,  **  (1 )  Death  signifies  the  separation  of  the  soul  from  the 
body:  This  is  temporal  death.  (2)  A  separation  of  soul 
and  body  from  God's  favor  in  this  life,  which  is  the  state  of  all 
unrenewed  persons  who  are  without  the  light  of  knowledge 
and  the  quickening  power  of  grace:  This  is  Spiritual  death. 
(3)  The  perpetual  separation  of  the  whole  man  from  God's 
heavenly  presence  and  glory,  to  be  tormented  forever  with  the 
devil  and  his  angels:  This  is  the  Second  or  Eternal  death." 
{Cruden's  Concordance.)  Here  we  have  differentiated  for  us 
three  distinct  meanings  of  the  Scriptural  word  "death"  not 
one  of  which  includes  its  actual  meaning,  to  enable  us  to  cir- 
cumvent the  plain,  positive  teaching  of  Scripture,  "  The  soul 
that  sinneth  it  shall  die.''  No  wonder  the  common  people  of 
the  present  day  have  come  to  feel  their  need  of  notes,  commen- 
taries and  expositions  of  learned  theologians  to  tell  them  what 
even  the  plainest  language  of  Scripture  means,  and  what  it 
does  not  mean,  in  any  given  case.  So  the  Jews  in  the  time  of 
Christ,  depending  more  upon  the  Talmudic  Targums,  the  expla- 
nations and  explications  of  their  Scriptures  prepared  for  them 
by  their  Rabbins  and  learned  doctors,  whose  minds  had  already 
been  corrupted  by  this  same  Platonic  philosophy,  than  upon 
the  plain,  literal  sense  of  the  Word,  were  persuaded  to  reject 
the  Saviour  as  their  only  hope  of  Eternal  Life,  and  to  claim  it  as 
their  natural  inheritance.  But  our  Lord  said  to  them  as  He 
does  to  the  present  generation  of  deluded  religionists,  "Search 
the  Scriptures,  for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have  Eternal  Life  (as- 
sured to  you)  but  they  are  they  that  testify  of  me," — of  me  as 
its  only  true  Source, —  and  "ye  will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye 
might  have  Life."  "  This  people  honoreth  me  with  their  lips, 
but  their  heart  is  far  from  me ;  In  vain  do  they  worship  me, 
teaching  for  their  doctrines  the  precepts  of  men." 

You  say  that  "  Human  consciousness  and  the  Bible  —  assume 
as  a  fact  —  that  the  soul  can  never  die."  Here  you  employ  the 
word  "die"  in  still  another  —  a  fourth  sense  —  its  only  true 
and  natural  sense  and  now  I  can  understand  what  you  mean; 
but  I  cannot  agree  with  you.  By  "human  consciousness"  you 
intended  to  say  no  doubt  or  should  have  said,  human  desire  or 
human  hope;  for  I  need  not  tell  an  acute  dialectician  like  your- 
self that  consciousness  does  not  know  anything  about  the 
future.  It  cannot  tell  us  either  what  is  yet  to  be,  or  what  is  not 
to  be.    But  I  agree  with  you  in  holding  that  there  is  a  natural 


HUMAN   IMMORTALITY.  351 

sentiment  in  man  —  implanted  by  God  for  wise  purposes  —  that 
makes  him  shrink  at  the  thought  of  extinction  and  long  for  the 
perpetuity  of  life.  But  it  is  not  because  this  perpetuity  is 
already  assured  to  him,  but  is  an  evidence  rather  to  the  con- 
trary. But  it  is  an  evidence  of  God's  gracious  purposes  con- 
cerning man,  of  His  willingness  to  give  him  the  immortality  he 
desires  if  he  can  only  be  fitted  to  possess  and  enjoy  it,  that  it 
may  be  attained  if  he  only  knew  how  to  secure  it.  It  is  this 
that  makes  the  Gospel  a  message  of  "good  tidings"  to  men 
who  are  perishing  through  sin.  It  tells  them  how  they  may 
escape  from  its  power  and  its  penalty  which  is  death,  and  at- 
tain to  the  Eternal  Life  which  they  desire.  But  when  you  telj 
sinners  that  their  immortality  is  already  assured,  and  that  they 
are  going  down  —  not  to  certain  death  and  destruction,  but  to 
an  Eternal  Life  of  wretchedness  and  woe  inconceivable,  you 
may  bring  in  your  factitious,  human-contrived  "  terrors  of  the 
world  to  come  to  enforce  your  appeal,"  they  will  quite  readily 
accept  your  assurance  of  immortality,  for  this  agrees  with  their 
desires  and  hopes,  and  the  suggestions  of  Satan  who  was  a  liar 
from  the  beginning,  but  as  for  "  the  terrors  of  the  world  to 
come,"  you  have  made  them  too  revolting,  too  fiendish,  too  in- 
credible to  be  believed  in  by  intelligent,  thinking  men  who 
have  any  true  conception  of  a  just  God,  and  they  will  reject 
both  the  appeal  and  the  Gospel  you  are  trying  to  enforce. 

Righteous  men  grieve  over  the  wide-spreading  indifferentism, 
skepticism  and  infidelity  of  the  present  day  —  and  are  anxiously 
inquiring  after  the  cause,  as  well  they  may.  But  the  cause  is 
not  far  to  seek — For,  says  the  prophet  of  the  Lord,  "With 
lies  ye  have  made  the  heart  of  the  righteous  sad,  whom  I  have 
not  made  sad ;  and  strengthened  the  hands  of  the  wicked  that 
he  should  not  return  from  his  wicked  way  by  promising  him 
life.'' 

"  Human  consciousness  and  the  Bible,"  you  say,  "  assume 
that  the  soul  can  never  die."  How  dare  you  say  this  when  the 
Bible  from  beginning  to  end  asserts  just  the  contrary  doctrine, 
if  you  would  only  allow  it  to  speak  for  itself!  How  do  you 
know  the  Bible  assumes  any  such  doctrine  ?  Who  authorizes 
you  to  say  so  ?  Surely  not  Jehovah  himself;  for  He  said  in  the 
beginning,  "Thou  shalt  surely  die,"  thou  — not  thy  body  — 
but  thou  thyself  —  which  must  mean  —  the  conscious  sinning 
man  himself,  if  it  mean  anything:    Not  Moses,  for  he  said 


352  HUMAN   IMMOETALITT. 

to  the  sinning  Israelites,  *'Ye  sliall  utterly  perish":  Not  Job, 
for  he  says,  "The  candle  of  the  wicked  shall  be  put  out": 
•  Not  David,  for  he  says,  "  For  yet  a  little  while  and  the  wicked 
shall  not  6e  ";  Not  Solomon,  for  he  says,  "  He  that  being  often 
reproved,  hardeneth  his  neck,  shall  suddenly  be  destroyed,  and 
that  without  remedy '\'  Not  one  of  the  prophets,  for  they  all 
agree  in  saying,  "  The  soul  that  sinneth,  it  shall  die  ";  '*  The  day 
Cometh  that  shall  burn  them  up,  that  it  shall  leave  neither  root 
nor  branch  " ;  <'  They  shall  be  as  though  they  had  not  been  " ; 
etc.,  etc.:  Not  John  Baptist,  for  he  says  the  wicked  are  as  the 
chafE  which  *'  shall  be  burned  up  with  unquenchable  fire  " :  Not 
Christ  Himself,  for  He  says,  "  I  give  unto  them  Eternal  Life  "; 
*'If  ye  believe  not  that  I  am  He,  ye  shall  die  in  your  sins  " : 
Not  Peter,  for  he  says  that  the  wicked,  "As  natural  brute 
beasts  shall  perish  in  their  own  corruption":  Not  Paul,  for  he 
says,  "  Their  end  is  destruction^^'  Not  James,  for  ho  says,  *'  Sin, 
when  it  is  ^nisAed,  bringeth  forth  death^^ :  Not  John,  for  he 
says,  "  Fie  that  believeth  not  God  hath  made  him  a  liar,  because 
he  believeth  not  the  record  that  God  gave  of  His  Son :  and  this 
is  the  record,  that  God  hath  given  to  us  Eternal  Life,  and  this 
life  is  in  His  Son.  He  that  hath  the  Son  hath  the  Life,  and  he 
that  hath  not  the  Son  hath  not  the  Life."  Nowhere  in  all  these 
Divine  Oracles  can  you  find  any  such  record,  but  in  the  re- 
corded words  of  the  great  Deceiver.  He  boldly  declares,  "  Ye 
shall  not  surely  die."  The  heathen  philosophers  took  up  this 
saying  and  called  it  the  dictate  of  reason,  and  the  so-called 
Church  of  Christ  in  the  days  of  her  waning  purity  adopted  it 
into  her  creed  and  endeavored  to  construe  the  Scriptures  into 
agreement  with  it,  and  it  has  been  handed  down  through  ages 
of  darkness  and  corruption  till  now,  as  one  of  the  fundamental 
truths  of  God's  Word  that  "  the  soul  can  never  die." 

It  is  too  bad,  too  bad  that  the  appointed  heralds  of  the  Gos- 
pel should  take  their  message  from  such  a  source,  and  ascribe 
it  to  the  Divine  Master  Himself,  saying,  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord  " — *'  the  soul  can  never  die,"  when  it  is  not  the  Lord,  but 
the  Great  Adversary,  who  says  so.  "  How  long  shall  this  be  in 
the  heart  of  the  prophets  that  prophesy  lies  ?  Yea,  they  are 
prophets  of  the  deceit  of  their  own  heart."  "  Behold,  I  am 
against  the  prophets,  saith  the  Lord,  that  use  their  tongues, 
and  say,  He  saith."  "He  that  hath  a  dream" — and  this  is 
nothing  but  a  dream,  a  delusion —  "  let  him  tell  a  dream/' 


HUMAN   IMMORTALITT.  353 

and  tell  it  as  a  dream,  "  and  he  that  hath  my  word,  let  him 
speak  my  word  faithfully."  "  Son  of  Man,  I  have  made  thee  a 
watchman  unto  the  house  of  Israel;  therefore  hear  the  word  at 
imj  mouth  and  give  them  warning  from  me.  When  I  say  unto 
the  wicked,  Thou  shall  surely  die,  and  thou  givest  them  not 
warning,  nor  speakest  to  warn  the  wicked  from  his  wicked  way, 
to  save  his  life  —  [not  to  save  his  soul  from  eternal  misery  —  but 
his  Life],  the  same  wicked  man  shall  die — [not  is  dead — but  shall 
die  —  not  be  miserable  forever  —  hni]  shall  die  in  his  iniquity. 
But  his  blood  will  I  require  at  thine  hand."  Beware  lest  you 
incur  this  fearful  malediction  upon  false  teachers.  I  know  you 
think  you  are  uttering  the  truth  and  are  doing  God  ^service 
when  you  teach  this  specious,  delusive,  popular  philosophy. 
But  it  is  only  because  you  have  been  so  thoroughly  educated 
into  it  from  your  infancy  that  it  has  become  a  part  of  your 
mental  furniture.  I  know  the  difficulty  of  breaking  loose  from 
such  bonds.  But  no  intelligent  man  at  the  present  day  who  is 
capable  of  studying  God's  Word  and  of  thinking  for  himself  is 
excusable  for  clinging  any  longer  to  this  fiction  of  the  deceiver, 
this  assumption  of  a  heathen  philosophy,  this  tradition  of  a  cor- 
rupt Church,  which  is  doing  more  to  perplex  the  minds  of  sin- 
cere believers,  to  obscure  the  glory  of  Christ,  to  hinder  the 
progress  of  the  Gospel,  and  to  asperse  the  character  of  our 
Heavenly  Father,  and  to  aid  and  abet  skeptics,  infidels  and 
opposers  of  every  sort,  in  their  opposition  to  the  Bible,  which  is 
supposed  to  teach  it,  and  to  God  the  Author  of  the  Bible,  than 
all  other  errors  combined.  It  is  full  time  that  our  religious 
teachers,  who  have  the  interests  of  Christ's  kingdom  really  at 
heart,  as  I  know  that  you  have,  were  willing  to  search  the 
Scriptures  on  this  vital  question,  and  to  take  their  insti'uctions 
from  the  Master  Himself. 

I  notice  that  you  fail  to  make  any  real  distinction  between 
soul  and  spirit.  You  use  these  words  as  almost,  if  not  quite 
synonymous.  This  is  true  of  all  who  belong  to  your  school 
generally.  Our  popular  dictionaries  define  soul  and  spirit  in 
nearly  the  same  terms.  But  "as  I  read  my  Bible,"  they  are 
quite  distinct  and  are  never  used  interchangeably. 

I  am  sorry  not  to  be  able  to  return  the  compliment  you  pay 
me  of  "  showing  the  fruit  of  long  and  devoted  study  in  one 
line,"  etc.  Your  scholarship  in  other  lines  is  indeed  conspJc» 
uous.    But  if  you  had  given  a  larger  share  of  your  attention  — 


S54  fitJMAN  IMMORtALtTY. 

not  to  the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures  in  accordance  with  the 
popular  systems  of  philosophy  and  metaphysics, —  but  to  the 
Scriptures  themselves,  in  the  original  languages  on  this  ques- 
tion, you  would  certainly  have  agreed  with  me  in  perceiving 
that  the  terms  nephesh  and  ruach,  in  the  Hebrew  signifying 
soul  and  spirit,  and  their  synonyms  psuche  and  pneuma  in  the 
Greek  are  quite  distinct  from  each  other,  and  are  no  more  to  be 
confounded  or  to  be  taken  for  each  other  than  the  effect  is  for 
the  cause.  It  was  not  the  soul  that  was  "  inbreathed,"  as  you 
say,  "into  man,"  but  the  spirit,  and  as  a  consequence  or  the 
effect  of  this  inbreathing  man  ''became  a  living  soul":  and 
when  this  life-giving  spirit  is  taken  away,  man  becomes  "  a 
dead  soul."  So  say  the  Scriptures.  "  Thou  sendest  forth  thy 
Spirit  {ruach) I  they  are  created;  thou  takest  away  their  breath 
(the  same  word,  ruach);  they  die  and  return  to  the  dust." 
Ps.  104. 

This  word  nephesh  (Heb.)  or  psuche  (Greek),  signifying  soul, 
is  very  capriciously  rendered  in  our  common  English  version  of 
the  Scriptures.  It  is  very  often  translated  "  life,"  and  less  fre- 
quently into  other  terms.  But  however  translated  it  always 
stands  for  that  which  is  perishable  and  transitory.  It  is  never 
spoken  of  as  permanent  and  indestructible;  no  adjective  signi- 
fying permanence  is  ever  joined  with  it.  Another  word,  zoe,  is 
employed  to  designate  the  Life  that  is  everlasting,  and  the  ad- 
jective aionios  is  coupled  with  it,  and  this  in  scores  of  instances. 
But  the  psuche  life,  the  soul-life  is  never  in  one  single  instance 
characterized  as  aionios  or  eternal.  The  same  is  true  of  nephesh 
in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  but  as  Life  and  immortality  are  more 
clearly  brought  to  light  in  the  Gospel,  we  direct  our  special  at- 
tention to  the  Greek  words.  The  psuche  life  is  the  natural  life 
of  man;  but  the  zoe  life  is  the  life  that  is  given  in  the  new 
birth.  It  is  the  Divine  Life  that  is  given  from  above,  and  is 
the  peculiar  life  of  God  Himself  and  of  His  people.  It  is  ira 
parted  to  them  by  a  special  act  of  His  grace.  I  do  not  say  that 
this  word  zoe  may  not  be  used  in  a  lower  sense;  indeed  it  is  so 
used  sometimes,  though  rarely  in  the  Scriptures,  but  I  do  say 
that  whenever  the  higher  life,  which  is  the  gift  of  God  through 
Jesus  Christ  is  spoken  of,  the  life  that  is  declared  in  so  many 
instances  to  be  Eternal,  the  word  psuche  is  never  used,  but  the 
word  zoe  always.  Hence  these  two  kinds  of  life  are  constantly 
brought  to  our  iiotice  in  the  Scriptures,  the  psuche  or  soul-life, 


HUMAN  IMMOETALITY.  S65 

which  we  all  receive  in  our  first  or  natural  birth,  and  which  is 
always  and  everywhere  declared  to  be  perishable  and  transient, 
and  the  zol  life  that  we  receive  in  our  second  or  super-natural 
birth,  which  is  always  and  everywhere  declared  to  be  im- 
perishable and  eternal.  This  would  be  apparent  to  the  com- 
monest reader  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  the  old  translators 
have  dealt  so  capriciously  with  this  word  pnuche  sometimes 
rendering  it  "soul"  and  sometimes  "life,"  and  then  making 
no  distinction  between  the  psuche  life  and  the  zoe  life.  But  a 
Greek  scholar  like  yourself,  and  a  teacher  of  theology  cannot 
be  excused  for  ignoring  or  confounding  this  vital  distinction. 

For  example:  the  Scriptures  say  "Take  no  thought  for  your 
life.''  "  He  that  loveth  his  life  shall  lose  it."  "  The  good  shep- 
herd giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep."  "  N^either  count  I  my  life 
dear  unto  myself,"  etc.  In  all  these  and  a  multitude  of  other 
cases  the  word  psuche  is  used,  and  it  is  the  natural  life  or  the 
Boul-life  that  is  referred  to. 

Again  they  say,  "What  shall  it  profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the 
whole  world  and  lose  his  own  soiil,  or  what  shall  a  man  give  in 
exchange  for  his  soulf  "  Thou  fool,  tliis  night  thy  soul  shall 
be  required  of  thee."  "  He  that  converteth  a  sinner  from  the 
error  of  his  way  shall  save  a  soul  from  death."  Here,  too,  pre- 
cisely the  same  word  psuche  is  used  in  the  original,  and  the  ref- 
erence is  to  the  natural  or  soul-life. 

But  again  we  read,  "  Strait  is  the  gate  and  narrow  is  the  way 
that  leadeth  to  life,  and  few  there  be  that  find  it."  "I  am  the 
resurrection  and  the  life."  "  Ye  will  not  come  unto  me  that  ye 
might  have  life.''  "  He  that  believeth  not  the  Son  shall  not  see 
life."  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  he  that  heareth  my  word 
and  believeth  on  Him  that  sent  me,  hath  everlasting  life  and  shall 
not  come  into  condemnation,  but  is  passed  from  death  unto 
life."  Here  it  is  the  higher  life  —  an  entirely  different  kind  of 
life,  that  is  spoken  of;  it  is  not  the  psuche  life,  but  the  zoe  life 
that  is  meant,  and  the  word  zoe  and  not  psuchS  is  used.  I 
might  cite  one  hundred  and  fifty  passages  of  similar  import, 
and  in  more  than  sixty  of  these  instances  the  adjective  aidnios, 
eternal  or  everlasting,  is  coupled  with  it. 

This  capricious,  vacillating,  rendering  of  the  word  psuche  as 
Bometimes  "soul"  and  sometimes  "life,"  and  the  rendering  of 
this  other  word  zoe  as  "life"  also,  with  nothing  to  distinguish 
these  two  sorts  of  life  from  each  other,  as  tliey  are  distinguished 


356  HUMAK   IMMORTALITY. 

in  the  Latin  by  the  words  anima  and  vita,  and  in  other  lan- 
guages, has  tended  greatly  to  contuse  the  unlettered  English 
reader,  and  to  perpetuate  this  false  notion  that  the  psuchical 
and  spiritual  lives  of  men  are  alike  indestructible  and  eternal. 
The  old  translators,  no  doubt,  believed  this  themselves,  and 
they  have  done  much,  alas,  in  this  and  in  other  ways,  to  fasten 
it  upon  the  Scriptures.  Our  revisers  have,  indeed,  corrected 
some  of  these  grosser  renderings,  and  done  something,  for  which 
we  are  duly  thankful,  but  not  what  they  might  have  done,  nor 
ought  to  have  done,  and  probably  would  have  done  had  it  not 
been  for  their  ultra  conservatism,  to  bring  out  clearly  the  true 
doctrine  of  the  Scriptures  on  this  question. 

But  a  Greek  scholar  and  a  master  in  Israel,  like  yourself,  has 
no  good  excuse  for  overlooking  these  radical  distinctions  — 
much  less  for  ignoring  them  when  noticed. 

It  will  not  do  to  say,  as  some  do,  that  this  phrase  aionios  zoe 
is  an  ethical  expression  meaning  simply  eternal  happiness;  for 
while  the  term  zbe  is  always  used  when  a  life  of  eternal  happi- 
ness is  spoken  of,  yet  it  may  be,  and  sometimes  is,  used  in  the 
Scriptures  to  designate  the  lower  life, a  life  without  any  regard 
to  its  character  and  conditions,  and  needs  a  qualifying  adjective 
to  characterize  it,  and  it  is  often  found  in  such  connections  that 
it  would  make  nonsense  to  translate  it  merely  as  an  ethical 
word  meaning  purity  or  happiness.  Christ  is  called  the  "  Prince 
of  Life,"  "The  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life";  "In  Him  was 
Life  and  the  Life  was  the  Light  of  men  ";  "Except  ye  eat  the 
flesh  of  the  Son  of  man  and  drink  His  blood,  ye  have  no 
Life  in  you";  "Being  reconciled  we  shall  be  saved  by  His 
Life  "  ;  "  Even  so,  we  also  should  walk  in  newness  of  Life,"  etc. 
In  all  these  passages,  and  in  numerous  others,  the  word  zbe 
is  used,  and  it  would  be  folly  to  understand  it  as  meaning 
simply  purity  or  happiness. 

Still  further  it  is  used  antithetically  with  thanatos,  death, 
and  this  very  often  in  the  Scriptures.  You  can  hardly  have 
failed  to  observe  that  the  apostle  Paul,  whenever  he  speaks  of 
the  aionios  zbe,  the  Life  Everlasting,  almost  invariably  puts  it 
in  contrast  with  thanatos,  death.  The  contrast  is  not  death 
and  happiness,  but  Death  and  Life  —  Life  Eternal.  A  life  of 
purity  and  blessedness,  it  is  true;  for  no  other  life  is  fit  to  be 
perpetuated  or  can  endure  forever. 
^  Here  let  me  call  your  special  attention  to  the  fact  that  neither 


HUMAN    IMMORTALITY.  357 

the  word  aionios  nor  any  other  word  signifying  eternal  is  ever 
joined  with  thanatos  in  the  Scriptures.  The  phrase  "  eternal 
death,"  which  is  so  common  in  the  religious  literature  of  the 
present  day,  and  which  our  theologians  so  constantly  put  in 
opposition  with  the  eternal  life  of  the  Scriptures,  is  entirely 
unknown  to  the  Word  of  God;  for  the  good  reason  that  death  is 
a  finality  of  itself,  and  not  a  state  of  existence  like  life.  Had 
not  the  whole  mortal  race  of  Adam  been  redeemed  from  the 
Adamic  death,  by  Christ,  this  death  would  have  been  the  final 
end  of  all  men,  but  because  of  this  redemption,  there  is  a  sec- 
ond death  for  all  who  do  not  accept  of  the  salvation  to  Eternal 
Life  which  He  offers — from  which  there  is  no  recovery.  This 
is  the  death  which  is  everywhere  put  in  opposition  with  the 
Life  Everlasting  of  the  Gospel.  Now  this  phrase,  ''  eternal 
death,"  has  been  invented  by  the  philosophers  of  your  school  to 
match  the  Scriptural  phrase  "Eternal  Life,"  to  help  out  your 
theory  that  both  the  death  and  the  life  of  the  Scriptures  are 
states  of  existence;  the  one  a  state  of  unending  misery,  and  the 
other  a  state  of  unending  happiness.  And  this  is  the  reason 
why  you  would  have  both  of  these  words  taken  in  an  ethical 
and  unreal  sense.  But  you  have  no  authority  for  this  in  the 
Word  of  God.  Dr.  Bartlett  has  given  this  as  the  title  of  his 
well-known  book,  "Life  and  Death  Eternal."  But  the  phrase 
is  as  misleading  and  anti-scriptural  as  is  his  doctrine  and  his 
argument.  If  the  death  of  the  Scriptures  were  a  state  of  exist- 
ence like  the  life,  with  this  difference  only,  that  the  one  is  a 
state  of  Eternal  misery,  and  the  other  of  Eternal  blessedness,  no 
reason  whatever  can  be  given  why  the  adjective  aionios,  signi- 
fying eternal,  should  not  be  joined  to  it  as  well  as  to  life;  but 
as  it  is  not  a  state  of  being,  but  the  final  end  of  being,  it  would 
be  mere  tautology  to  apply  this  epithet  to  it.  Let  me  ask  your 
special  attention  to  this  usage  of  Scripture,  for  to  me  it  is  quite 
conclusive  of  my  position,  that  there  is  no  life  of  any  kind,  no 
existence  whatever  to  the  unsaved  beyond  the  Second  death. 

I  am  sorry  that  you  should  have  to  say  as  you  do,  "Your 
view  does  not  to  my  mind  relieve  at  all  the  dark,  mysterious 
problem  of  evil  and  suffering  in  a  world  created  and  adminis- 
tered by  a  benevolent  God  " ;  for  it  does  relieve  it  greatly  to 
my  mind,  and  this  is  the  uniform  experience  as  I  know,  of  large 
numbers  who  have  embraced  it.  I  think  you  cannot  have  duly 
considered  it.    Not  a  few  even  of  those  who  are  not  yet  pr& 


358  HUMAN   IMMOETALITY. 

pared  to  give  up  the  so-called  "  orthodox  "  doctrine  of  unend- 
ing sin  and  misery,  have  confessed  to  me  that  my  view  would 
greatly  relieve  their  minds.  I  have  before  me  now,  a  letter,  just 
received  from  one  of  the  leading  ministers  of  our  church,  who 
after  speaking  very  kindly  of  my  book,  as  you  have  done,  says: 
**  It  has  disturbed  me  more  than  I  care  to  be,  because  the  past 
has  a  very  strong  hold  upon  me,  and  rooted  beliefs,  if  they  die 

at  all,  die  slowly Your  book  furnishes  the  means  of 

a  great  relief,  if  I  can  but  accept  its  interpretation  of  God's 
Word.  The  philosophy  of  man  is  vain.  God's  Word  standeth 
sure." 

No  wonder  you  are  compelled  to  confess  that  this  problem  of 
evil  and  suffering,  as  you  conceive  of  it,  is  a  "  mystery  "  you 
*' cannot  fathom."  Educated  in  the  same  theological  school 
as  yourself  and  taught  to  believe  that  many,  many,  how  many, 
it  is  impossible  to  tell,  of  our  fellow  creatures  will  be  doomed 
to  an  existence  of  hopeless,  unutterable  misery  and  torment  to 
which  there  will  come  no  relief  or  mitigation,  or  end  whatever: 
that  we  are  all  exposed  to  this  doom  by  the  sin  of  our  first 
parents,  and  that  a  large  portion  of  the  race  come  into  being 
under  such  circumstances  as  to  forbid  even  the  hope  that  they 
will  escape  this  awful  doom  —  indeed  that  no  one  does  escape 
but  through  the  special  grace  of  God  which  is  accorded  not  to 
all  but  to  the  elect  only:  it  did  seem  to  me  a  mysterious, 
dreadful  doctrine,  and  so  it  must  to  all  intelligent  minds,  if  al- 
lowed to  dwell  upon  it  at  all.  You  know  how  such  Christian 
men  as  Albert  Barnes,  John  Foster  and  others,  with  whose 
writings  you  are  familiar,  struggled  with  this  problem  and  how 
they  confessed  that  they  could  not  reconcile  it  with  their  con- 
ception of  a  God  who  is  infinite  in  wisdom,  goodness,  love  and 
power,  that  He  should  impose  so  dreadful  a  doom  upon  any  of 
His  creatures,  that  their  philosophy  could  not  throw  one  ray  of 
light  on  this  dark,  dark  problem  of  eternal  evil.  Nor  can  you 
nor  any  other  man  conceive  of  one  plausible  reason  why  the 
miserable,  hopeless,  forfeited  existence  of  any  of  the  creatures 
to  whom  God  has  given  life,  should  be  perpetuated  in  helpless 
and  unending  wretchedness,  that  does  not  impeach  either  His 
goodness  or  His  power,  or  both.  And  yet  you  hold  fast  to  the 
Scriptures  as  the  Word  of  God,  and  you  continue  to  love  and 
trust  Him  notwithstanding  the  fearful  aspersion  of  cruelty 
your  theology  throws  upon  His  character;  and  you  would  per- 


I 


HUMAN   IMMORTALITY,  859 


Buade  others  to  do  this,  but  with  such  scant  success  that  your 
Christian  heart  is  pained.  You  cannot  but  know  that  this  dog- 
ma to  which  you  still  cling,  and  which  has  not  yet  been  able 
to  overturn  your  faith,  has  driven  multitudes  into  skepticism 
and  infidelity,  or  into  the  equally  pernicious  and  destructive 
en'or  of  Universalism,  and  is  one  of  the  chief  obstacles  to  the 
reception  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ  by  the  heathen,  who  insist 
that  their  gods,  though  perhaps  less  powerful,  are  not  so  atro- 
ciously cruel  as  yours. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  if  you  could  come  to  see  as  I  do,  that 
this  dogma  of  eternal  sin  and  misery  is  no  part  of  the  teaching 
of  God's  Word,  but  is  the  deduction  of  a  false  philosophy  and 
the  fruit  of  Satan's  cunning — his  very  masterpiece,  to  set  the 
hearts  of  men  against  their  Creator  and  to  undermine  their 
faith  in  His  Word,  and  to  weaken  the  power  of  the. Gospel: 
that  evil,  so  far  from  being  an  integral  part  of  God's  system,  is 
but  incidental  and  transitory,  a  mere  episode,  which  had  its 
beginning  and  will  have  its  ending  when  it  shall  have  subserved 
the  purpose  for  which  it  was  permitted  to  enter;  that  Christ 
was  not  only  "  manifested  to  destroy  the  works  of  the  devil," 
but  that  He  will  destroy  them, — and  what  are  they  but  sin  and 
suffering,  and  death? — that  "the  heart  of  God  is"  not  merely 
*' set  for  the  relief,"  as  you  say,  of  this  burden  of  evil  under 
which  "the  whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  un- 
til now,"  but  that  He  is  fully  able  to  accomplish  that  on  which 
His  heart  is  set,  and  determined  to  do  it ;  that  the  victory  of  His 
Son  over  Satan  and  all  his  hosts  shall  be  complete ;  and  no  such 
partial  victory  as  shall  permit  them  to  retain  possession  of  one 
part  of  His  otherwise  glorious  universe,  however  small  it  may 
be,  where  they  can  prolong  their  worthless,  miserable  lives  in 
sin  and  suffering,  cursing  Him  and  defying  His  wrath,  while 
He  torments  them  forever;  but  that  if  the  creatures  of  His 
power  will  not  submit  to  His  beneficent  rule,  nor  be  won  by 
His  mercy  and  grace,  nor  consent  to  live  in  harmony  with  the 
multitude  of  the  holy,  happy  subjects  of  His  Universal  King- 
dom, they  shall  not  live  at  all,  they  will  be  utterly  and  forever 
destroyed  with  "  an  everlasting  destruction,"  —  that  in  the  end 
of  the  world,  "  He  shall  send  forth  His  angels,  and  they  shall 
gather  out  of  His  kingdom  all  things  that  offend,  and  them 
which  do  iniquity,  and  shall  cast  them  into  a  furnace  of  fire," 
where  they  shall  be  utterly  consumed  like  the  taies  in  the  time 


360  HUMAN   IMMORTALITY. 

of  harvest!  Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in 
the  kingdom  of  their  Father."  "And  there  shall  be  no  more 
sin,  nor  sorrow,  nor  death,  for  the  former  things  have  passed 
away."  If  I  say,  you  could  come  to  my  view  on  this  question, 
I  am  sure  that  your  Christian  heart  would  find,  as  many  others 
have  found,  a  great  relief  from  the  burden  that  is  now  on  it, 
and  a  great  cloud  would  be  rolled  away  from  the  face  of  your 
Heavenly  Father,  and  the  glorious  Gospel  of  the  blessed  God 
would  be  invested  with  a  tenfold  greater  beauty  and  power, 
and  you  would  be  able  to  offer  it  to  your  dying  fellow-men,  and 
urge  it  upon  their  acceptance  with  such  a  confidence  and  an 
assurance  of  its  excellency  as  you  have  never  yet  felt. 

I  join  with  you  most  heartily  in  the  prayer  that  "  wo  both 
may  now  and  hereafter  know  the  fulness  of  its  power,"  and  I 
pray  also  that  we  may  so  know  it  as  to  be  able  boldly  and  suc- 
cessfully to  present  it  to  our  fellow-men  as  their  only  hope  of 
life  and  immortality  beyond  the  grave. 

Most  sincerely  yours, 

J.  H.  Pettingkll. 


INDEX 

OF  THE  PRINCIPAL  SCRIPTURE  CITATIONS. 


Note. 


Passages  incidentally  or  indirectly  quoted  or  referred  to,  are  too 
numerous  to  be  included  in  this  list. 


PAGE 

Genesis  1 :  26,  132 

Genesis  2;  4,  147 

Genesis  2:  17,  126,  147 
Genesis  3:  14-19,    145,  296,  299 

Genesis  3:  21,  159 

Genesis  3:  22,  135,149 

Genesis  4:  2-5,  159 

Genesis  5:  2,  133 

Numbers  14;  21,  299 

Deuteronomy  3:  40,  173 

1  Samuel  2:  9,  218 

Job,  numerous  citations,  181 

Psalms,  numerous  citations,182 

Psalm  1;  1-6,  218 

Psalm  2:  1-12,  218 

PsaimS:  5,  134 

Psalm  49:  1-20,  219 

Psalm  72:  1-20,  300 

Psalm  104:  29,  30,  130 

Psalm  139:  24,  218 

Psalm  146:  4,  131 

Proverbs,  numerous   cita- 
tions, 183,  219 


Ecclesiastes  3 :  9, 

Isaiah  1 :  28, 
Isaiab  21:  11, 
Isaiah  33:  14, 
Isaiah  34:  9,  10, 
Isaiah  35:  10, 
Isaiah  41:  11, 
Isaiah  53:  11, 
Isaiah  55:  12,  13, 


131 

183 
220 
242 
274 
300 
183 
297 
300 


PAGE 

Jeremiah  23 ;  28-32, 

118 

Ezekiell3:  22, 

62 

Ezekiel  18 :  20, 

183 

Ezekiel  18:  31, 

220 

Daniel  2:  44, 

300 

Daniel  12:  1-3, 

243 

Obadiah  16, 

183 

Nahum  1 :  15, 

183 

Malachi4:l,          183 

221,  301 

Apocrypha, 

166 

Matthews:  10,  12, 

185 

M.tthew7:  13, 

107 

Matthew  8:  28, 

301 

Matthew  10:  28, 

40,  185 

Matthew  13:  38-40, 

185,  297 

Matthew  24 :  3, 

246 

Matthew  24:  21-30, 

243 

Matthew  25:  1-13, 

223 

Matthew  25:  41, 

250 

Matthew  25 :  46, 

225,  244 

Mark  3:  28,29, 

252 

Mark  9:  43-50, 

254 

Luke  4:  31, 

301 

Luke  13:  1-5, 

186 

Luke  16:  19-31, 

257 

John  1 :  12. 

285 

John  3:  3-17, 

199 

John  3:  36, 

253 

John  4:  10, 

201 

John  5:  21-40, 

201 

John  6:  53,  54, 

lU 

361 


362 


INDEX   OP    SCRIPTURE. 


John  6:  27-63, 
John  8;  21, 
John  8:  44, 
John  10:  9-16, 
John  10:  27,  28, 


PAGE 

202 
204 
141 
204 
154,  167,  205 


John  11:  25,  26,  111,  154,  205 

John  14:  19,  154 

John  15:  5,  6,  186 

John  17 :  1-3,  205 

Acts  3:  23,  186 

Acts  8 :  20,  186 

Acts  13:  46-48,  208 

Romans,  many  citations,     209 

Romans  1:  18-32,  85 

Romans  2:  6,7,  167 

Romans  2:  12,  187 

Romans  5:  12,  108,  143,  228 

Romans  5:  17,  111 

Romans  6:  21,  187 

Romans  7:  5,  187 

Romans  9:  22,  187 

1  Corinthians,  many  cita- 
tions, 209,  210 
1  Corinthians  15:  12-58,  78,  228 
1  Corinthians  15:  17,  187 
1  Corinthians  15:  24-26,        302 

1  Corinthians  15:  45-47,153,  284 

2  Corinthians  4:  3,  86 
2  Corinthians  4:  18,  284 
2  Corinthians  11:  3,                 86 

Ephesians  1 :  10,  302 

Philippians  2:10,  295 

Philippians3:  16,  187 

Colossians  1:  19,  295 


PAGH 

2  Thessalonians  1 :  9,     187, 249 
2  Thessalonians  2:  8,  302 

2  Thessalonians  2:  10,  187 


Hebrews  2 :  14, 
Hebrews  6:  4-8, 
Hebrews  8:  7, 
Hebrews  9 :  28, 
Hebrews  10:  26, 

1  Timothy  4 :  8, 

1  Timothy  6:  5, 

2Tiraotliy  1:  9,10, 

2  Timothy  2:  17,  18, 
2  Timothy  4:  3, 

James  1 :  15, 

2  Peter  2:  1, 
2  Peter  2:  12, 
2  Peter  3 :  7-9, 
2  Peter  3:  10-13, 

1  John  1:1, 
1  John  2:  25, 
1  John  3:  15, 
1  John  5:  10-12, 


301 
187 

286 
287 
188 

111 

187 

168 

290 

86 

188,  289 

86 

188 

188,  280 

203 

211 

211 

188,  211 

26,  112,  211 

Revelation  14:  11,  268 

Revelation  18:  21,  273 

Revelation  19:  3,  268,  273 

Revelation  19:  20,21,  276 

Revelation  20:  1-3,  276 

Revelation  20:  2,  141 

Revelation  20:  9,  10,  268 

Revelation  20:  12,  188 

Revelation  20:  11-15,  305 

Revelation  21  and  22,  305,  306 

Revelation  22:  1-5,  151 


INDEX 

OF    AUTHORS    CITED    OR    REFERRED    TO. 


PAGE 

PAGB 

Abbott,  Lyman 

322 

Clark,  A. 

146 

Adams,  Prof. 

21 

Clement  of  Rome, 

41,312 

Addison, 

333 

Clement  of  Alex., 

315 

Alford,  Dean 

128, 

146,  322 

Coleridge, 

339 

Alger,  W.  R. 

82,  260 

Collier, 

335 

Ambrose, 

42,  323 

Constable,  H. 

63,  338 

Apostles,  Teaching  of  the          | 

Cook,  Joseph 

75 

41,312 

Cocorda,  O. 

20 

Arnobius, 

41,  318 

Congregational  Creed, 

193 

Ashcroft, 

334 

Cremer,  Prof. 

109 

Athenagoras, 

42,  315 

Cruden, 

144 

Athenasius, 

42 

Cyprian, 

42 

Augustine, 

42,46 

Dale,  R.  W. 

23.  322 

Baker,  L.  C.     155 

,247, 

274,  291 

Danforth,  J.  R. 

289 

Barnabas, 

41 

Darby,  J.  N. 
David,  King 
Davies,  Sir  J. 

324 

Barnes,  A. 

143, 

278,  289 

308 

Bartlett,  168, 190, 

235, 

240,  244, 

333 

248, 

267,  269 

Davis,  T. 

322 

Barton,  J. 

250 

Davidson,  W. 

337 

Baxter, 

325 

De  Burgh,  W. 

197,  322 

Beecher,  E. 

324 

Denniston,  J.  M. 

332 

Boardman,  G.  D. 

171,  S20 

Dobney,  H.  H. 

322 

Boston, 

325 

Donne, 

319,  333 

Brown,  T. 

329 

Dorner,  Dr. 

20 

Brown's  Diet., 

323 

Drummond,  Prof. 

213 

Bunsen, 

339 

Dryden, 

319 

Burnet,  Bishop 

91 

Dwight,  T.               164, 

309,  315 

Butler,  C.  M. 

328 

Butler,  Wm.  A. 

325 

Edwards,  J. 

319,  329 

Byron, 

339 

Ellicott,  Bishop 

324 

Byse,  0. 

20 

Eisenmenger, 
Emerson,  R.  W. 

260 
333 

Calvin,  J. 

321, 

325,  327 

Erskine,  E. 

331 

Calmet's  Diet., 

136 

Erskine,  R.                 • 

325 

Chapin, 
Channing,  W.  E. 

333 
168 

Ezekiel,  Prophet 

309 

Chamberlain,  J.  H. 

332 

Ferguson,  F. 

832 

Chase,  D.  H. 

328 

Foster,  John 

824 

363 


364 


INDEX   OP    AUTHORS. 


Garland,  D. 

PAGE 

341 

Macre,  D. 

PAGE 

332 

Gess,  Dr. 

20 

Malachi,  Prophet                  310 

Gibbon, 

84 

Martineau,  J. 

339 

Goethe, 

323,  335 

Mary,  Queen 

327 

Gotthold, 

385 

Milton,  J. 

103,  129,  149 

Graham,  A. 

326 

Minton,  S. 

117,  218,  279 

Grafe,  J.  F. 

332 

Montgomery, 

339 

Greenfield,  W. 

107 

Mohammed, 

319 

Gregory,  Thau. 

312 

Moschus, 

83 

Griffith,  W. 

324 

More,  Hannah 

335 

Hart,  W.  R. 
Hedge,  Dr. 
Hendrickson,  C.  R. 
Hermas, 

326 

339 

330 

41,312 

Mortimer,  VV.  F. 
Mountford, 
Miiller,  Max 
Munger,  T.  T. 

324 
333 
333 
118 

Hippolytus,               42 
Hitchcock,  Pres.  E. 
Hopkins,  S.               52 

315,317 

77 

293,  323 

Newman,  J.  H. 
Newton,  Bishop 

337 

326 

Hodge,  Prof. 
Hobbs,  W.  A. 
Huntington,  W.  R. 

137 
20,  232 
89,  125 

Obadiah, 

Olshausen, 

Origen, 

310 

171,  320 

42,  45,  312 

Ignatius, 

Irengeus,                     41 

41,312 
150,  316 

Paul,  Apostle 

310 

Isaiah,  Prophet 
Ives,  Prof. 

308 
274 

Parker,  Joseph 
Parker,  Theo. 

322,  323 
333 

Perowne, 

322 

James,  Apostle 

310 

Perry,  Rev.  J. 

166 

.-.^ 

21 

Petavel,  E. 

326,332,336 

Jennings,  L  "^ 

332 

Peter,  Apostle 

312 

Jerome, 

42 

Phelps,  Eliz.  Stuart              334 

Job, 

308 

Phelps,  A.  A. 

326 

John, 

310 

Plato, 

38,83,84,311 

John  Baptist, 

310 

Pollock, 

337 

Josephus, 

lol 

Polycarp, 

41 

Justin, 

42,  314 

Pope,  A. 

319 

Kramer,  G.  R. 

326 

Presbyterian,  Confession    319 

Kerr, 

324 

Renouvier,  C. 

328 

liactantius. 

41,  318 

Ritcher, 
Robinson,  E. 

339 
111 

Lambert,  C. 

328 

Rosseau, 

335 

Lange, 

128 

Rothe,  R. 

318 

Leask,  W. 

828 

Rutherford,  S. 

327 

Leathes,  Stanley 

159 

Leo  X., 

46,  317 

Satan, 

309 

Litton,  E.  F. 

324 

Schaflf,  P. 

290 

Locke,  J.^           70,  80, 

115,  322 

Schultz,  H. 

328 

Longfellow, 

333,  339 

Scott,  D.  W. 

324 

Love,  C. 

337 

Scott,  Walter 

335 

Luther,  Martin 

61,  318 

Simmons, 

167 

^ytton,  Bulwer 

335 

Smith,  James 

323 

INDEX   OF   AUTHOES. 


365 


PAGE 

Smith,  J.  Pye  128 

Somerville,  833 

Socrates,  38 

Solomon,  308 

South,  Robert  823,  330 

Spurgeon,  327, 337 

Stokes.  Prof.  21 

Strang',  M.  W.  328 

Stuart,  Moses  278 

Taunton,  E.  W.  324 

Tatian,  42,  315 

Taylor,  Jeremy  68,  331,  337 

Tennyson,  323 

Tertullian,  315,  317 

Theophilus,  41,  135,  314 

Thorn,  D.  320 

Thomson,  Archbishop  320 

Tillottson,  172, 333 


PAGB 

Tinling,  J.  F.  B. 

97 

Trench, 

259 

Tulloch, 

822 

Tupper, 

821 

Tyndale, 

818 

Walker,  T.  330 

Warleigh,  S.  n.74,  320,  322, 340 
Watson,  Richard  324 

Webster,  N.  108,  110,  323 

Weymouth,  R.  F.  322 

Whately,  Archbp.  84,  120,  324 
White,  Edward  123, 171, 330,334 
Whitaker,  327 

Wilson,  J.  D.  326 

Winslow,  H.  839 

Young,  829 

Zoroaster^  293 


Aben,  Ezra 
Bois,  Dean 
Gaussen,  Prof. 
Gerold, 
Giatry, 


243 
340 
340 
340 
340 


Naville,  E.  Prof. 
Saadias,  Rabbi 
Secretan,  Prof. 
Tregelles, 
Swainson,  Prof. 


340 
243 
S40 
243 
21 


THE  UNSPEAKABLE  GIFT. 


BY  J.   H.    PETTINGELL,   A.M. 


COMMENDATORY    >TOTICES. 

That  the  first  edition  (of  1,000)  of  the  Unspeakable  Gift  has 
been  exhausted  and  a  second  called  for  within  two  months  from 
the  time  of  its  first  appearance  may  be  taken  as  an  evidence  of 
the  favor  it  is  receiving  from  the  public.  But  we  subjoin  as 
further  evidence  a  few  of  the  many  notices  that  have  been  re- 
ceived. 

From  Rev.  Edwabd  White,  London. 

"  I  have  been  sitting  under  one  of  my  oaks,  consecrated  al- 
ready by  the  company  of  many  worthies,  reading  you  all  the 
morning.  What  a  gunshell!  and  how  ingeniously  packed  with 
truth  and  gunpowder.  It  is  the  result  of  coming  last  into  the 
field  with  a  manual,  but  it  is  the  best.  If  they  will  not  hear  this, 
neither  would  they  be  persuaded  if  one  rose  from  the  dead. 
Indeed  I  think  our  divines  are  in  a  parallel  position  with  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  who  lived  before  and  at  the  first  advent. 

*  Their  eyes  they  have  closed.'  But  I  begin  to  think  a  tone  of 
stern  rebuke  alone  will  wake  them  up.  It  is  truly  wonderful 
how  they  not  only  shut  their  eyes  but  glue  them  down.  Your 
work  is  most  admirably  done.  The  style  is  very  pure  and  for- 
cible. As  for  the  chapter  of  contrasted  parallels  at  the  end,  it  is 
splendid.    I  wish  it  were  republished  in  England." 

From  Rev.  Geo.  R.  Kramer. 
"Such  works  as  Hudson's  'Debt  and  Grace,*   Constable's 

*  Duration  and  Nature  of  Future  Punishment,'  and  J.  H.  Pettin- 
gell's  '  Unspeakable  Gift,'  the  last  named  recently  published  by 
I.  C.  Wellcome  of  Yarmouth,  Me.,  would,  if  received  by  the 
church,  in  proportion  to  their  merits,  produce  what  we  might 
term,  to  borrow  a  word  which  expresses  the  revival  of  art,  a 
renaissance  of  true  theology. 

"That  man  is  essentially  immortal  is  neither  the  utterance  of 
Reason  nor  Revelation,  but  that  those  who  are  qualified  for  im- 
mortality will  receive  it  is  the  suggestion  of  Reason  and  the 
promise  of  Revelation.  All  this  is  ably  presented  by  Mr.  Pet- 
tingell  in  this  work.  Mr.  Pettingell's  book  is  a  scholarly  work, 
and  his  style  is  forcible.  It  is  argumentation,  yet  not  only  so, 
but  rhetorically  energetic  and  incisive,  and  this  because  ho 
deeply  feels  his  theme. 

"  This  book  is  the  work  of  an  educated  man,  who,  accepting 
the  word  of  God  as  a  little  child,  '  has  been  redeemed  from 
the  vain  corruptions  received  by  tradition  of  his  fathers.'  " 

From  the  Christian  at  Work. 
**  Whether  agreeing  or  disagreeing  with  the  author's  teaching 
that  none  but  the  righteous  will  g;\in  immortality,  and  that  all 
others  must  utterly  perish,  this  recent  book  will  be  found  in- 
tensely interesting." 


From  Rev.  W.  Leask,  d.d.,  London,  Enoj.  (in  the  "Rainbow?'), 
"  Mr.  Pettingell  has  done  well  in  the  fidelity  of  his  testimony 
to  the  central  truth  of  Scriptures,  —  Eternal  Life  only  in  Christ. 
He  sees  this  as  the  sublime  meaning  of  redemption,  and  he  also 
sees  the  abounding  theological  confusion  caused  by  blindness 
to  this  fact.  Conscious  of  the  responsibility,  which  rests  upon 
him,  he  has  labored  much  and  long,  and  this  his  last  work, 
though  not  his  least,  is  marked  by  a  fulness  of  thought,  and 
clearness  of  expression  which  the  intelligent  reader  will  kijow 
how  to  appreciate." 

Herald  and  Presbyter,  Cincinnati. 
''The  doctrine  of  this  work  is  that  immortality  is  the  gift  of 
God  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  the  portion  only  of  believers; 
while  the  wicked,  though  raised  at  the  judgment  from  a  state 
of  unconsciousness,  will,  after  the  judgment,  be  literally  de- 
stroyed. The  author  is  manifestly  regarded  as  an  authority 
among  those  of  his  faith  in  this  country,  and  appears  to  have 
examined  the  question  with  much  care,  in  which  he  displays  a 
large  amount  of  literary  and  biblical  scholarship.  In  all  other 
respects  he  holds  the  general  system  of  doctrine  common  to 
evangelical  Christians.  He  presses  his  views  with  great  earnest- 
ness and  undoubted  sincerity.  Whether  his  views  are  accepted 
or  not,  he  will  not  fail  to  command  the  respect  of  the  reader." 

The  Evangelical  Messenger,  Cleveland,  quotes  the  no- 
tice of  the  Herald  and  Presbyter,  and  says: 

"We  adopt  the  above  words  of  an  orthodox  cotemporary, 
whose  views  on  the  subject  of  the  work  are  identical  with  those 
of  the  Evangelical  Association." 

From  the  Philadelphia  Methodist. 

"The  numerous  publications  of  this  author  have  won  him  a 
reputation  as  a  writer,  and  this  new  work  is  upon  a  theme  that 
requires  scholarship  and  a  disciplined  mind  to  handle  success- 
fully. It  treads  a  pathway  which  ho  has  already  passed  over  in 
considering  conditional  immortality,  in  which  he  distinctively 
shows  that  eternal  life  is  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus  Christ; 
—  that  none  but  the  righteous  will  gain  immortality;  that  all 
others  must  utterly  pCrish.  The  author  shows  conclusively  that 
It  was  God's  original  purpose  to  give  immortality  to  man,  but 
having  fallen  by  sin  he  can  only  be  restored  through  Christ. 
We  want  more  of  the  power  of  this  *  unspeakable  gift '  to  over- 
come sin  and  secure  holiness." 

From  the  Christian  Standard,  Pittsburg. 

"  The  aim  of  the  work  is  to  convince  the  reader  that  the  un- 
saved will  be  blotted  out  in  the  future,  and  that  a  continued 
conscious  existence,  will  be  given  only  to  those  who  are  saved. 
He  is  a  pleasant  writer,  and  shows  no  mean  ability  in  arranging 
his  arguments  in  defence  of  his  positions.  Indeed,  we  know  of 
no  book  in  advocacy  of  the  same  views  that  makes  a  more  plaus- 
ible showing  of  that  side  of  the  question." 


3 

From  The  Interior,  Chicago. 
"  This  book  is  an  earnest,  courteous,  and  fairly  creditable  en- 
deavor to  prove :  that  immortality  does  not  come  from  Adam 
by  natural  birth,  and  is  not,  consequently,  the  natural  endow- 
ment of  every  man,  but  that  it  is  a  supernatural  endowment 
derived  from  Christ,  and  only  by  a  new  spiritual  birth  and  a 
resurrection  from  the  dead.  The  result  is  the  doctrine  that  the 
death  threatened  in  the  Bible  is  not  the  three-fold  death  ordi- 
narily accepted;  nor  is  it  any  kind  of  life.     It  is  destruction." 

From  the  Central  Baptist,  St  Louis. 
"  The  design  of  the  author  is  to  show  that  eternal  life  is  the 
gift  of  God  to  believers,  through  Christ,  and  that  none  but  the 
righteous  will  attain  unto  immortality,  while  all  others  will  ut- 
terly perish.  The  author  is  a  man  of  extensive  scholarship, 
and  argues  his  points  forcibly  and  earnestly,  so  that  the  book 
is  a  good  defence  of  his  views,  whatever  may  be  the  opinions 
of  the  reader." 

From  the  Church  Union. 

"Mr.  Pettingell's  new  book  is  considered  one  of  the  best 
books  of  a  very  excellent  author." 

From  the  Illustrated  Weekly. 

*'Mr.  P.  argues  with  great  earnestness,  evidently  believing 
that  he  is  upholding  the  cardinal  truth  of  the  gospel." 
From  the  Christian  Statesman,  Milwaukee. 

*'If  we  rightly  understand  this  author,  it  is  that  immortality 
is  not  inherent  in  man,  but  is  the  gift  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 
Whether  or  not  we  should  assent  to  all  the  minutiae  into  which 
this  thought  might  lead  we  cannot  say,  but  as  a  practical  fact, 
nothing  is  plainer  to  us  than  that  it  is  true.  There  is  no  im- 
mortality, eternal  life,  without  Christ.  It  is  a  duty  to  read  such 
books.  This  book  has  a  supplement  containing  a  vast  amount 
of  authorities  on  the  subject." 

Methodist  Recorder,  Philadelphia. 

"The  author  of  this  volume  is  a  thoughtful,  scholarly  and 
reverent  writer,  and  the  author  of  quite  a  number  of  volumes. 
His  position  is  that  eternal  life  is  the  gift  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ.  He  holds  that  it  was  God's  original  purpose  to  give 
immortality  to  man,  and  that  he  might  have  been  exempt  from 
death  had  he  never  sinned,  and  that  it  is  still  his  purpose  to 
immortalize  him — but  not  in  sin  and  misery— but  only  by  a  res- 
toration to  holiness.  While  those  who  believe  in  Christ  shall 
become  immortal,  those  who  reject  him,  he  holds,  will  lose  this 
boon,  and  perish  forever— cease  to  be.  The  author  presents  his 
view  with  considerable  clearness  and  force." 

Zion's  Herald,  Boston. 
"  The  writer  is  one  of  the  ablest  defenders  of  the  doctrine  of 
eonditional,  as  distinguished  from  natural,  immortality.     He  be 
lieves  this  (the  immortal  life)  to  be  purely  the  gift  of  Christ, 


and  when  it  is  not  bestowed,  as  not  soug^ht  foi  in  life,  the  sec- 
ond death  ends  an  existence  which  is  not  followed  by  a  resur- 
rection. An  immense  amount  of  literature  bearing  upon  tlie 
theme  is  gathered  in  this  volume.  The  conviction  and  earnest- 
ness of  the  author  as  to  the  truth  he  uttej^-s  are  apparent  on 
every  page." 

Portland  Transcript. 
"That  the  'wages  of  sin  is  death'  has  not  for  ages  had  a 
wide  belief  in  the  Christinn  church,  as  a  literal  fnct.  The  con- 
stant recurrence  throughout  the  Scriptures  of  the  threat  of 
death  to  all  who  do  not  accept  the  terms  of  life  offered  by 
thiist,  is  almost  universally  held  to  mean  something  quite  differ- 
ent from  the  omdhHation  of  the  wicked.  And  yet  it  seems 
quite  clear  that  in  the  early  Christian  church,  the  belief  was 
common  if  not  universal,  that  there  was  no  immortality  except 
for  those  who  believed  in  Christ.  We  have  before  us  a  work 
by  J.  H.  Pettingell,  entitled  The  Unspeakable  Gift,  in  which  the 
argument  against  the  natural  immortality  of  m;m  is  set  forth 
with  great  vigor  and  with  copious  reference  to  scriptural  and 
other  authorities.  Those  who  wish  to  see  how  much  can  be 
said  by  an  evangelical  writer  in  regard  to  the  indebtedness  of 
our  race  to  the  Saviour  for  the  gift  of  immortality,  should  care- 
fully study  this  book." 

From  Dr.  A.  W.  Taylor. 
*'The  book,  *  Unspeakable  Gift '  is  the  best  of  anything  I  have 
ever  read  on  the  subject.     It  ought  to  be  read  by  every  minis- 
ter and  Bible  student  in  the  land,  I  am  thankful  it  is  published." 

Episcopal  Methodist,  Baltimore. 
"  While  we  dissent  from  the  author's  conclusions,  we  admire 
his  candor  and  devout  spirit." 

From  Prof.  Slater  of  the  Judson  University,  Arkansas. 
"The  Unspeakable  Gift,  fresh  from  the  pen  of  our  loved 
Bro.  Pettingell,  I  have  just  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  perusing. 
I  am  thankful  that  so  worthy  a  volume  has  been  given  to  the 
people  of  this  country,  upon  a  theme  so  generally  neglected  and 
perverted.  First  of  all  it  is  a  highly  interesting  and  readable 
book.  It  abuses  no  one.  It  is  earnest  and  Christian  in  tone. 
It  presents  Bible  truth  in  its  beauty  and  harmony.  I  know  of 
no  book  that  I  would  sooner  put  in  the  hands  of  an  honest 
skeptic  for  winning  him  back  to  the  Bible  than  this.  May  they 
be  circulated  widely." 

Pacific  Mission  Advocate. 

**  Another  interesting  and  instructive  book  has  just  come  to 
our  table.  It  is  entitled,  '  The  Unspeakable  Gift,'  written  by 
J.  H.  Pettingell,  a.m.,  late  Chaplain  at  Antwerp,  Belgium. 

"The  author's  name  is  ample  assurance  of  its  value.  It  is 
just  the  book  to  loan  to  all  the  ministers  and  Bible  students  in 
your  town.    Buy  it,  circulate  it." 


Religious  Herald. 

**  The  author  holds  that  the  New  Birth,  the  Resurrection  from 
the  dead,  and  tlie  Life  Everlasting,  are  not  the  orderly  steps  in 
any  natural  progress,  but  they  are  truths  beyond  the  reach  of 
scientific  discovery.  There  is  no  law  of  nature  that  can  ex- 
plain, or  approve  or  disapprove  them.  They  are  specially  and 
divinely  revealed  to  our  faith,  and  are  to  be  received  because 
they  are  revealed,  and  as  they  are  revealed,  if  at  all.  He  holds 
that  the  idea  of  the  future,  for  the  purpose  of  rewards  and  pun- 
ishments is  quite  different  from  tlat  of  an  endless*existence 
hereafter.  Thar,  the  idea  of  a  second  life  does  not  exclude  that 
of  a  second  death  and  final  extinction  of  being.  That  the  Word 
of  God  evidently  points  to  a  future,  even  for  the  wicked;  but  it 
is  a  future  that  is  terminated  by  death,  from  which  there  is  no 
recall. 

"  The  author  of  the  introduction,  chairman  of  the  London  As- 
sociation of  Congregationiil  ministers,  zealously  maintains  the 
same  opinions  and  claims  that  he  could  fill  pages  with  the  rec- 
ord of  the  many  centers  where  the  doctrine  of  Life  only  id 
Christ  has  rooted  itself." 

From  an  Eminent  Congregational  Minister. 

"  I  regard  it  as  a  very  effective  presentation  of  Conditional 
Immortality  and  shall  be  disappointed  if  you  do  not  hear  more 
from  it  than  from  its  predecessors,  considerable  as  has  been 
their  success.  In  clearness  and  strength  of  statement,  in  co- 
gency of  reasoning  and  clear  cut  rejoinder,  in  systematized  ar- 
rangement and  condensation  of  treatment  and  matter  the  work 
has  real  power  that  must  make  itself  felt.  It  has  disturbed  me 
more  than  I  care  to  be,  because  the  past  has  a  very  strong  hold 
upon  me,  and  rooted  beliefs,  if  they  die  at  all,  die  slowly.  I 
cannot  accept  the  eschatology  of  the  '  Old  6V7;o(  Z,'  nor  do  I  see 
the  "Eternal  Hope'  as  brightly  as  Farrar  in  his  fervent  pages. 
Your  book  furnishes  the  means  of  a  great  relief  if  I  can  but 
accept  its  interpretation  of  God's  Word.  The  philosophy  of 
man  is  vain,  God's  Word  standetli  fast. 

"  The  beauty  and  tenderness  of  your  Preface  breathes  of  the 
still  waters  and  the  green  pastures  of  the  Psalmist. 

"  May  God  lead  and  keep  you  in  such  forever.  It  is  a  subor- 
dinate, but  important  matter — the  make-up  of  the  book.  I 
congratulate  you  upon  its  attractive  appearance." 

The  book  is  neatly  bound  in  fine  muslin.  Price  $1,  by  mail; 
6  copies  $5,  by  mail.     Agents  wanted.     Liberal  commission. 

Addiess,  L  C.  WELLCOME, 

yARMOUTH,  Maine. 


ANOTHER  VALUABLE  BOOK. 

By   Rkv.  J.  H.  Pkttingell,  a.m. 

VIEWS  AND  REVIEWS 


Mr.  Pettingell's  book  entitled  "  The  Unspeakable  Gift/' 
is  pronounced  in  America,  Europe,  and  India,  to  be  the  most 
able  and  convincing  work  ever  written  on  Conditional  Im- 
mortality. The  third  edition  is  sold,  and  now  an  edition  of 
six  thousand  is  to  be  printed.  It  has  called  forth  many 
questions,  some  criticisms  and  perversions,  and  some  Ke- 
views.  This  new  book  will  be  found  still  more  valuable  to 
many  readers,  as  it  enters  into  more  minor  points  in  expla- 
nation of  the  many  questions  on  the  objections  that  are 
urged,  the  perversions  that  are  often  framed,  and  the  crit- 
icisms which  have  appeared  on  tlie  great  variety  of  topics 
treat  upon  all  sides  of  this  most  important  of  all  Bible 
doctrine.  It  is  the  last  of  Mr.  Pettingell's  writings,  as  he  is 
now  past  all  literary  work,  and  must  soon  pass  away.  We 
tbank  God  he  has  lived  to  do  so  much  noble  work  for  the 
Master.    We  here  give  a  part  of 

THE  TABLE  OF  CONTEXTS. 

The  Unity  of  Man;  Post-mortem  Probation;  The  Gospel  of 
Xfife  in  the  Syriac  New  Testament;  The  two  Ways  —  the 
■way  of  life  and  the  way  of  death ;  The  Resurrection  of  the 
Dead;  The  Intermediate  State;  Bible  Terminology;  What 
did  Christ  Teach?  Paul's  Earnest  Desire;  Baptism  for  the 
Dead;  Will  Satan  Live  Forever?  The  Coming  of  Christ  and 
the  Sinner's  Doom;  Life  and  Death  in  the  New  Testament; 
Keply  to  Prof.  Shedd,  d.d.,  on  the  Certainty  of  Eteinal  Pun- 
ishment; What  We  Think  —  Reply  to  Dr.  Dexter,  Editor  of 
the  Congregationalist;  Annihilation  —  Replv  to  Dr.  J.  H. 
Brookes ;  Science  and  Sentiment;  The  World  not  a  Failure; 
Ijetter  to  a  Congregationalist  Minister;  Reply  to  the  Editor 
of  the  St.  Louis  Evangelist;  The  Soul  Here  and  Hereafter — 
a  Review;  The  Soul  and  the  Resurrection;  Resurrection  of 
the  Wicked  — a  Letter;  What  shall  I  do?  — Reply;  The 
Soul,  What  is  it?  The  Resurrection  Body  of  Christ;  The 
Resurrection  an  Important  Doctrine;  The  Life  Beyond;  A 
Chapter  of  My  Experience;  Have  any  of  the  Rulers  Believed 
on  Him  ?  All  Fullness  in  Christ  —  A  Sermon ;  Letter  to  the 
American  B.  of  F.  Missions  on  Probation  after  Death. 

SCRIPTUBAL  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY. 

Price  ^1.  Address  I.  C.  Wellcome,  Yarmouth,  Me. 


